


and all the pieces fall

by downn_in_flames



Series: and when you get me alone it's so simple [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A lot of original characters, Album: Lover (Taylor Swift), Album: Red (Taylor Swift), Album: Reputation (Taylor Swift), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Lily Evans Potter, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Professional Quidditch, Quidditch, Quidditch Player James Potter, at least for the first 10 chapters, based on many taylor swift songs actually, coach lily evans, i love that that's a tag that already exists, i was looking at later chapters and realised i should probably add that tag, just as a..... warning lol, split timeline, will probably add more tags as i think of them or as they become relevant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:08:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27819514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downn_in_flames/pseuds/downn_in_flames
Summary: You did a number on me, but honestly baby, who's counting?When Puddlemere United picks up the infamous James Potter’s contract, the entire program is thrilled… with the exception of one assistant coach by the name of Lily Evans, who had really hoped she'd never see him again.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Marlene McKinnon, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: and when you get me alone it's so simple [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706896
Comments: 67
Kudos: 141





	1. burning red

**Author's Note:**

> lol i figured it was time to start posting this, it's only been sitting in my google docs for like over a year now

"That was a sloppy turn, McNamara!" Lily Evans yells across the pitch, her voice amplified by a Sonorus charm.

The Chaser in question reacts by making his next turn with flawless technique - much more fitting for the world-class athlete he's meant to be.

She's satisfied with the change, and informs him of such with a quick shout of, "Better."

The Puddlemere United players move through the air with remarkable grace and precision - even as someone who's meant to pick apart every flaw and imperfection, even Lily has to sometimes step back and admire the sheer artistry of it all.

The Prewett twins take turns hitting bludgers, each with a loud, satisfying _thwack_ of the wooden bat against the ball, as they soar across the pitch, slicing through Lily's magically-created targets with remarkable precision.

Puddlemere's brilliant, _brilliant_ Seeker, Marianne Dubois, is doing quick-turn drills today, and every new whistle has her hurtling in a completely different direction almost instantly - half the time, she's so quick that Lily doesn't even see her make the actual turn.

Ozzie Kieloch is taking his time flying around the Quidditch hoops, but even from a distance Lily can tell that his eyes are trained with military precision on the Quaffle as it's passed back and forth between Charlie McNamara and Corinne Ringwald, the starting team's Chasers.

It's because they're all so perfectly in tune that the missing seventh player seems so obvious, a gaping hole in the middle of the pitch just begging to be filled.

It's hardly that simple though, because finding someone whose rhythm can keep up with theirs is a tall order.

The next few hours pass in a similar fashion - the players run drills, and Lily's there to consistently provide both encouragement and criticism as they do so, weaving around the pitch to properly supervise everyone.

If anyone had told Lily during her early years at Hogwarts that she'd find herself working as a training coach for a professional Quidditch team after graduation, she absolutely would've thought they were mental. She didn't even start attending the games regularly until fourth year, and that was only because… well, the reasoning doesn't matter much anymore.

Point being, it's a little bit of a miracle that she's managed to command the respect of a whole roster of players who were good enough to go pro when her only real play experience comes from her seventh year at Hogwarts - but they all seem to defer to her authority unquestionably.

In her defense, she knows what she's talking about, and no one in their right mind could ever suggest that she's in any way incompetent at her job. She may not have ever played in a professional match herself, but she's researched every element of the game religiously, and when it comes to actually getting the team in shape for the season, there's no one else on Puddlemere's staff who does it better.

She's made sure of that.

"Good work today," she addresses the team, flying closer towards them all so that she doesn't have to magically amplify her voice anymore. She nods at the pair of Beaters. "Prewetts, the two of you especially. Your accuracy has skyrocketed this offseason."

"Thanks, Evans," one of the twins - Fabian - responds, grinning.

"Now, all of you need to go shower, take an ice bath if you need, and be ready for the scrimmage with the reserve team tomorrow." She claps her hands together. "They'll be giving you a good run for your money, especially since you still don't have a third Chaser yet."

Honestly, the fact that the first team only has two Chasers at the moment is the only reason the game against the reserves tomorrow is going to be anything _but_ a complete blowout. The first team is a force to be reckoned with right now - easily one of the best (if not _the_ best) team in the English League.

Lily takes pride in the fact that she's been a not-insignificant part of that.

She flies down to the ground with the players - she's got the responsibility of putting all the gear away in the storage closets, and even though she hasn't actually been practicing with them, she's been involved enough in their training today that she's _also_ desperately in need of a shower before leaving the practice facilities.

Practices like these - where she's left totally in charge and is the primary coach on the premises for the day - are her favourites. She's not beholden to following whatever Harrison has put together as the training plan, and she gets to be just that little bit more involved in the actual practice. It's totally worth the fact that she gets stuck lugging all the supplies back to the offices, and that she's sweating so much by the time that she's finished that all of her baby hairs are plastered to her temples.

The women's side of the locker room is cleared out when she gets there - Corinne and Mari were both likely in a rush to get home, she figures. It's nice though, having a whole locker room to herself sometimes. She can take her time, washing all the grime out of her hair as she fills the shower area up with honeysuckle-scented steam.

She doesn't have anywhere else to be today - it's just this one training session on her schedule. She's got a little work to do in the office, recording practice stats and other relevant information for the other coaches who weren't at this particular training session, but that shouldn't take too long. She'll be home before noon, most likely. Maybe she'll work on stocking up her potions stores when she gets home; even though she's not doing potionmaking as a career like she'd once expected to, it's a fun hobby - and saves her quite a bit of money over buying premade brews.

Showered and fully dressed - in an only-slightly-different set of joggers and top than the ones she was wearing for practice - she uses a quick spell to dry her hair and tie it into a messy bun on the top of her head.

This is perhaps the greatest perk of working in the Quidditch world - there's absolutely no dress code.

The coaching offices - situated adjacent to the locker rooms - are predictably abandoned. It's not a particularly inviting space anyways - a long, wide hallway with dull grey walls and doors leading into each office - but the complete lack of any other human presence makes it even bleaker. Luckily, Lily's office has a window, so it's at least a little brighter than the common area.

Lily's office is also the clearest sign that she's the only woman who works here. Unlike the other members of the coaching staff, whose offices are nothing but a standard-issue chair and a desk covered in papers, Lily's is much more inviting. Her desk is a glossy golden wood, and the chair behind it is a well-worn maroon thing she'd found at some pureblood estate sale. She's got the same chalkboard set-up along one wall that all the other coaching offices have, but unlike those offices, it's not the only thing on the walls. She's got a massive Gryffindor Quidditch banner - which has been altered a bit since its original creation, but has all the important bits still there - hung up, as well as a bunch of photographs from both Hogwarts and her time here at Puddlemere.

All in all, she's made this little space feel like home in a way that none of her coworkers have even bothered to attempt.

She lingers in front of the chalkboard - it's full of training ideas, but almost all of them require three Chasers on the pitch, so she hasn't had the chance to put them to use yet this offseason.

Michael Andersson had shocked them all in the middle of the season last year, when he'd announced that the current season would be his last. He'd been the backbone of the Chaser team since Lily started working at Puddlemere, the player they could always trust to convert a solid play into a goal, and they still haven't found his replacement.

And it certainly hasn't been for lack of trying - they've been experimenting with various Chasers on the alternate team for weeks now, but the truth of the matter is that none of them are even remotely ready to take on the role as the central Chaser on the starting team.

The fact that they're a full month into the offseason without even a hint of a replacement strategy for their primary scorer has been a point of stress throughout the entire coaching staff, but the owner has seemed… strangely calm about it all. Lily imagines he's got some sort of plan in his back pocket - the Puddlemere organization has an insane amount of revenue in its back pocket, so Lily imagines his solution likely involves putting some of that money to use somehow.

She doesn't let herself think on that much longer, and instead sits down at her desk, opening the coaches' training binder to today's page.

She grabs a quill, dipping it into an inkpot, and begins to write, documenting all of the drills they'd done today, what looked strong, potential areas for improvement, all that stuff. Her handwriting is, by nature, incredibly messy, but she does her best to make it as legible as possible when she's filling out shared training documentation.

She finishes off with a note about the Prewetts' target accuracy, fanning the paper so that the ink has a chance to dry fully before she closes the book.

She's just about to take the binder out and put it on the shared shelf where it belongs, when she suddenly hears a flurry of activity in the common area. Which is odd, given that she's the only one who was meant to be here today.

When she steps out of her own office to investigate, she's suddenly face-to-face with Harrison, head coach and Lily's own boss. And as she looks around, she realises that practically the entire coaching staff has just walked in.

"What's going on?" she asks Harrison, trying to make sense of everyone's unexpected presence.

"Ah, you would've been here all morning, so I guess you didn't get owled," he answers. "Worthington called an all-staff meeting."

Well, shit. So much for going home and having the whole rest of the day to herself, she thinks. To Harrison, she just nods. "That certainly explains it. Any indication what it's about?"

"Nope," he answers, before heading off in the direction of the conference room.

She follows him, curiosity piqued. The owner of Puddlemere United calling an urgent all-staff meeting certainly isn't usual behavior, and almost certainly means that something major has happened.

When she gets into the conference room and starts to listen in on her coworkers' conversations, it becomes apparent that none of them know what's going on either. It seems Worthington hadn't given any indication of what this meeting is meant to be about in his message.

Lily slides into a chair next to Harrison just as Worthington walks into the room and closes the door behind him.

Unlike the coaching staff, who are all in various states of casual dress, Killian Worthington dons dark grey robes that are clearly rather expensive, his white hair neatly slicked back. His presence is a commanding one - the combination of money and power give him an unshakeable air of confidence and authority. So when he shuts the door and walks to the front of the room, all the chatter goes silent.

"Thank you all for coming and meeting me here on such short notice," he begins, looking around the table. "I have news to share - it's been in the works for a while now, but it's sensitive enough that I thought it prudent not to share until it was a done deal. But also, as Puddlemere's valued coaching staff, I also thought it important that you find it out from me rather than from the _Prophet_ , who will inevitably catch wind of this news and plaster it on the front of tomorrow's sports section."

Lily sees a few other coaches exchange looks out of the corners of their eyes, but she keeps her focus on Worthington.

"I'm pleased to announce that Puddlemere now has its third starting Chaser." He claps his hands together, looking rather proud. "We've bought out James Potter's contract from Portree - he'll be joining our program effective immediately."

The room suddenly bursts into excited whispers about James Potter, the incredibly talented Chaser who's made a meteoric rise to the top of the Quidditch world over the last three years.

But for Lily's part, she thinks about James Potter, the boy she's seen only in magazines since they graduated, the boy she once thought she could've fallen in love with until he left her flying through the freefall alone, and all she can see is red.

Angry, burning red.

* * *

**_Seventh Year, May 1978_ **

_She's the first person he tells._

_It helps that they're together when the letter arrives, revising patrol schedules at some ungodly early hour given that it's a weekend. The Great Hall is all but empty except for the two of them - the only other people here at this hour are a few young Hufflepuffs and McGonagall, who's eating alone at the high table._

_He's in the middle of asking whether or not Terrence should be placed with Marina, when an envelope suddenly drops out of the sky and directly on top of the schedule he'd been consulting._

" _What is - " James trails off, examining the envelope curiously. As he flips it over in his hands gingerly, Lily's eyes are immediately drawn to the dark purple seal, which James then promptly rips open._

_They're on the same side of the bench, which would make it awfully easy for Lily to just read the letter over his shoulder, but instead of doing that, she finds herself watching his eyes instead. She's been doing that a lot lately - finding herself unconsciously drawn to his eyes, so expressive and vibrant even behind his thick glasses. She watches as a million tiny emotions flash through them, as he goes from squinting at the page to looking at it in what can only be described as complete and total awe._

" _Bloody hell," he eventually says, before looking up at Lily. She instantly feels a bit embarrassed about the fact that she's more or less just been caught staring at him, but James doesn't even seem to register it. He's too occupied by whatever he's just read. "Did you read it? This?"_

" _I - " Lily stammers, still a little flustered, "no. I didn't want to - "_

" _Can you read it?" he asks abruptly, holding the letter out to her. "Like, aloud? Make sure I'm not just, I don't know, completely hallucinating it or anything?"_

_Lily blinks at him, before answering with a cautious, "Sure?"_

_She takes the letter from him, eyes scanning along the page as she begins to read it aloud to him. " 'Dear Mister James Potter, The coaching staff at Portree was highly impressed with your performance at our tryouts in April. As a result, we would like to offer you a position as Chaser on the first reserve team, with the potential to join the starting team as soon as next fall, contingent on your performance. The exact specifics of your contract remain up for negotiation, but we'd like for you to begin training with the team upon graduation from Hogwarts - ' "_

_She stops reading, looking up at him. "James, this is a - you got a professional offer."_

_This is the thing he's been dreaming of since he was little, and the thing he's been agonising over for the better half of seventh year. It's why he held onto the Quidditch captaincy even with his Head Boy position, why he's put so much work into the Gryffindor Quidditch team this year, why he's spent pretty much every free hour down at the pitch running drills by himself._

_All of it, all for this moment._

" _I - holy shit, I got a professional offer," James repeats back to her, the stunned look on his face finally giving way to a blindingly bright grin._

_His happiness is contagious - Lily couldn't resist smiling back at him even if she wanted to._

" _I got a professional offer!" he says again, more confident this time, before immediately pulling Lily into a hug._

_She's a bit stunned at first - both by the sudden hug and by how_ good _he smells, even though that really shouldn't be surprising at this point, because she's been noticing that one for a while - but eventually, she wraps her arms around him as well, returning the gesture._

" _I knew you would," she says softly, just loud enough for him to hear. "Always knew it."_

_He pulls back to look her in the eyes, hands coming up to rest on her shoulders, and it's like the world comes to a screeching halt in that moment. The joy in his golden-flecked eyes is something she'll easily be able to commit to memory, as easy as she knows the words to an old song. And in that moment, it's like all she wants is right there in front of her, and it would be so easy for one of them to just close the tiny amount of space between them and -_

" _Fuck, I should probably go tell the boys," James says, completely ruining the moment and any sort of tension or magnetism that had developed between them. "And my parents! Mum will be livid if she finds out from someone before I can get a letter to her."_

_Lily just smiles at him, doing her best to ignore the pounding of her heart and something she can only label as disappointment settling in her chest._

_He could've kissed her then. She_ wanted _him to kiss her then._

" _You go do that," she tells him, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Wouldn't want to disappoint anyone - it's exciting news, after all."_

_He nods, then immediately looks down at the schedules they'd been working on, slightly panicked. "Shit, we were supposed to be - "_

" _I can handle it, James," she interrupts. "Go tell your mum you're going to be a professional Quidditch player."_

" _I - okay," he nods again. "I'll go do that. Have I told you you're the best lately?"_

_She flushes at that - dammit, she shouldn't be flushing like this at a simple compliment - and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "Once or twice, maybe," she says, trying to act cooler than the heat in her cheeks would indicate._

" _Well, you are," he confirms, before turning to the high table. "Hey Minnie! I'm going to be a professional Quidditch player!"_

_He takes off running out of the hall, and McGonagall doesn't even bother reprimanding him for using her first name. Instead, Lily sees a clear look of pride cross the features of their usually-stern Head of House._

_Lily takes a deep breath, positive that her cheeks are about the same shade as her hair right now. He's always doing that to her, turning her bright red from the inside out, burning with something she never quite wants to label for fear of calling it love._

_It seems so bright before they lose it all._


	2. so why'd you have to rain on my parade?

Lily's mind is racing for the rest of the day. So many of the memories that she'd worked so hard to push from her mind, that she'd learned to block out every time she saw his name mentioned in a Quidditch publication, come rushing back to her now that James is so imminently about to become a part of her life again.

She goes for a long run in the afternoon, in the hopes that it'll help clear her mind, but it ends up having the opposite effect - there's nothing along the winding trail to focus on beyond her own thoughts. She can't stop fixating on him, on their past, on all her feelings about their history that she thought she'd gotten over already.

And so needless to say, by the time 5 o'clock rolls around, she's in desperate need of both a drink and someone to vent to - which is why she finds herself at the Leaky Cauldron, nursing a firewhiskey and waiting on Marlene.

She doesn't drink much - the only times she does is when decorum demands it, and even then it's only to keep up appearances and not for the actual sensation of it - but she does make the occasional exception.

And days like today… they're a worthwhile exception for sure.

She doesn't have much of a taste for this place though, at least not since she became of age and ceased to see it as her main point of entry to the magic world. The regulars here are always just a bit too rowdy and disorderly for her taste, the surfaces just a bit too grimy. Although she supposes she's been a bit coddled by her lifestyle in recent years, and perhaps she might not be so judgmental of it otherwise.

The one thing, however, that she's quite certain she'd continue to be repulsed by no matter what the circumstances, are the leering gazes of some of the men at tables nearly, many of whom look to be at least thirty years her senior.

Lily knows she's always been naturally pretty - this knowledge was something she'd once felt ashamed of, as if grasping the weight of her own attractiveness would somehow diminish it or instantly earn her the title of a narcissist, but a few years worth of adulthood have brought her the understanding that pretending to be blind to it does no service to anyone. She's objectively good-looking, bordering on striking - rich auburn hair against alabaster skin, dotted with a nearly invisible layer of freckles, and bright green eyes. She stands out almost immediately in a crowd due to that alone.

She's grateful that she's still wearing rather loosely-fitted clothing, as she's quite sure that anything more form-fitting would only amplify those glances tenfold. She knows from experience that people tend to pay attention to her body when she accentuates it properly - something she's not afraid to weaponise when necessary, but right now, while she's trying to moodily drink in peace, is more of a nuisance than anything.

Lily hears Marlene before she sees her - her best friend has a loud, distinctive voice, and she orders a firewhiskey from the barkeep like she's known him for years.

Unlike Lily, Marlene is dressed in professional-looking robes that make it clear she's come directly from the Ministry. Her blonde hair is neatly curled down her back, and she looks fully put together in a way that Lily herself absolutely does not.

Whereas Lily's the type to draw attention for her looks, Marlene draws it for her charm. It's not that Marlene isn't pretty - because she is, she's stunning really - but she's got a way of carrying herself that seems to instantly make every man she meets pure putty in her hands.

It's a skill quite hilariously put to waste by the fact that she's not even remotely interested in them.

"Would you believe Ishmael is out of Ogden's?" Marlene says as greeting, sliding into the chair opposite Lily. "I had to order the cheap stuff, like some sort of commoner."

Lily herself honestly can't tell the difference between high-end and low-end alcohol - a side effect of how little she drinks to begin with - so her own glass is filled with whatever the barkeep wanted to give her.

"How tragic," Lily replies dryly, with a hint of a smile on her face. "How ever will you survive this atrocity?"

Marlene simply rolls her eyes. "You'd understand if you drank as much as I do."

Lily hums, but she knows that, even if she was the type to drink regularly, she probably wouldn't be able to afford the nice stuff all the time anyways. Her experiences with luxury are… situationally limited. "Perhaps."

Marlene takes a sip, grimacing a little at the burn. "But anyways, you said you had something you needed to vent about?"

Lily takes a moment, trying to figure out where to even start. Marlene's been her best friend since their first year at Hogwarts, so she, perhaps more than anyone, understands the extent of her and James' complicated history and all the feelings Lily has about him now.

Eventually, she just settles for the most direct route. "Puddlemere has picked up Potter's contract."

Marlene doesn't react at first, and Lily can see the exact moment that it hits her. "Potter as in… your Potter?"

"He was never mine, and he _certainly_ isn't mine now, so I'm not sure that descriptor works, but yes. Potter as in James."

Marlene hums, taking another sip of her firewhiskey. "That's… _fuck_ , that's going to be a real fun one."

Lily laughs sarcastically. "That's an understatement if I ever heard one. But honestly, what are the fucking odds?"

The Quidditch world is a relatively small one, but it's also just large enough that it's easy to avoid people you don't want anything to do with. In all her time at Puddlemere, she's never even been so much as within ten metres of James. Which has been absolutely brilliant, and she would've happily kept that up for the next ten or twenty years if he'd just stayed on his own damn team.

But while it's easy to avoid people within the Quidditch world as a whole, it's next-to-impossible to avoid anyone within the same program. She knows all the Puddlemere players like they're her own family, knows all of their strengths and weaknesses and weird pre-game rituals by heart.

And now James is about to be one of those players.

"I honestly can't believe Portree sold him," Marlene thinks aloud. "He was, like, their star player last year."

Lily just shrugs. She's sure it comes down to the fact that Worthington undoubtedly offered the owner of Portree a sum of money they couldn't walk away from.

Marlene keeps musing on it. "I wonder if it's an image thing? Like, they decided his talent wasn't worth dealing with all the bad press?"

Secretly, Lily doubts that's the case. Yes, James' behavior frequently lands him in a whole sort of unfavorable news stories, but no one in the Quidditch world _actually_ cares about that. As long as the players show up to practice and consistently perform well in games, they can get up to fuck-all in their off-hours.

She's quite sure there's more than one team in the league that would even brush off an actual criminal allegation if one of their star players ended up getting charged. It's just the way of the industry.

"But back to the important stuff," Marlene says, changing the subject, "how are you feeling about it?"

Lily sighs - it's the million Galleon question, and one that she doesn't really have a clear answer for. "After everything, I really would've been thrilled to never have to see him again for the rest of my life. And now I'm going to have to interact with him on a daily basis and just… pretend like everything's fine." She laughs bitterly at the thought of that.

"You don't… you don't still fancy him, do you?"

Lily's sour laugh becomes a genuine one at the mere implication. "Oh, fuck no," she answers immediately. "Have you _seen_ the asshole he's turned into? I don't fuck with that at all. I might've liked him in seventh year, but he's a totally different person now - and in all the wrong ways."

Marlene cringes. "Yeah, that's true - he… hasn't exactly handled Quidditch fame well."

"That's the understatement of the century," Lily returns. "I work with famous Quidditch players on a daily basis… and not a single one of them is anywhere as near as bad as he is."

"And it's funny, because I always figured he was the type who _wouldn't_ let the fame get to his head," Marlene muses. "Just because, well, he _was_ a prick for such a long time, then he grew out of it, and you would've thought he would've stayed that way."

Lily hums. "I don't think it's that far-fetched - he always _did_ love the spotlight. Always loved the attention that came with it."

Her friend just shrugs.

"I just… I can't believe I'm going to have to spend every day with him," Lily continues. "And I'm just going to have to act like he's just like any of the other players, like there isn't history between us… although, I suppose, nothing ever really _did_ happen anyways."

"But it almost did," Marlene looks surprisingly earnest. "Seriously, we all thought something would - hell, I'm pretty sure there was a betting pool on it in Gryffindor Tower, and not a single person won it because _no one_ wanted to bet that you two wouldn't get together at all."

Lily laughs derisively, too single-minded to even truly process the fact that her friends were _betting_ on her relationship status. "Well then, I guess none of you took into account the idea that James would just decide to completely forget about my existence as soon as we all graduated."

"No, none of us really expected that," Marlene replies with a grimace. And then, "So, how are you going to handle it?"

"I don't know, I guess I could try to forgive him for all of it? That's the _nice_ thing to do, right?" The words sound so ridiculous coming out of her mouth that Lily immediately laughs. "God, I can't even say that with a straight face."

Marlene snorts at that.

Maybe, years ago, when Lily was young and trusting and hadn't yet been stabbed in the back by so many of the people who she'd once called her friends, forgiveness _would_ have been on the table. But Lily's not that naïve girl anymore - she's gone through too much shit to give a second chance to anyone who's burned her once before.

"I'm going to do my job," Lily eventually tacks on, "because I refuse to let him take that from me. But other than what's absolutely required, I want nothing to do with him."

"Yeah, that's fair," Marlene says, before taking another sip of her drink. "And I'll just hope like hell that Puddlemere comes to its senses and realises they don't want some posh partying playboy on their Quidditch team sooner rather than later."

Lily cackles, delighted that Marlene is indulging her bitterness and giving it right back. "You're incredible, and I'll fucking toast to that."

A wicked grin appears on Marlene's face as she clinks glasses with Lily. "What are real friends for?"

* * *

She forgets about it all - about him - for a solid few hours, as she and Marlene order dinner and start talking about anything and everything that _isn't_ related to James Potter. Marlene's consistently full of interesting stories - she's currently got a position in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, and a new bizarre and interesting case lands on her desk almost daily.

As a result, Lily's in a notably better mood when she gets back to her flat, hanging her purse up on the hook as she enters.

The flat itself isn't anything special - she makes a decent salary in her coaching gig, but given that she lives by herself, she doesn't see the need for anything much larger. Much like her office at Puddlemere, the whole thing has a sort of warmth to it that makes up for the small size.

She's in such a good mood now that she really doesn't know why she does it - perhaps the three firewhiskeys she'd consumed over the course of the evening are fuel - but she finds herself walking to the side of her bed and reaching underneath it.

After a good bit of searching, her hand makes contact with what she was looking for, and she pulls a black box out. It's not much larger than a shoebox, and there's a thick layer of dust along the top - evidence of just how long it's been since she's looked at it.

She pulls the lid off, and sure enough, the contents inside are exactly as she'd left them. A stack of photos, followed by a few torn-out magazine articles.

She picks up the photos first - despite the years and the ways that the subjects of the images have changed, the moving figures looking back at her are the same as ever.

First is the Gryffindor Quidditch team of 1977-1978. Lily had tried out and made the team that year, something that surprised pretty much everyone in the House - no one even knew Lily could _play_ , much less be good enough to make the team. Well, no one except James, that is, as he'd been giving her lessons for most of their sixth year and had practically begged her to try out for their vacant Seeker spot.

She tries not to think too much about the gravity of the role he played in introducing her to the sport that's become fairly central to her existence.

In this picture, though, they're all attempting to look at the camera rather stoically - but then someone mutters something and they all crack up. She doesn't even remember what the actual joke was, but she _does_ remember just how much they'd felt like a team in that moment.

Next up is a shot from the Hogwarts Express, of Lily and Mary and Marlene and Dorcas and James and Sirius and Peter all squished into one compartment, with Remus behind the lens of the camera. Lily's legs are across James' lap, and he's laughing at something she's saying. Meanwhile, Marlene is rolling her eyes and Sirius is trying to throw a Bertie Bott's bean and catch it in his mouth.

She continues to flick through all the photos, as the number of people in the images gradually starts to dwindle, until every single one is just of Lily and James. There's one of them in the middle of a snowball fight, another where she's explaining something to him while they study together, and even one where she's just pulled off charming his hair bright green.

And then the final one, which is the one that feels the most like a stab in the gut. The two of them are up in the Astronomy Tower - for some reason, the Gryffindor seventh years had all decided to take a break from NEWTs studying to spend an evening up there with food nicked from the kitchens and wine smuggled in from Hogsmeade. In the photo, she and James are sitting side by side; she's got her head resting against his shoulder, and he's got an arm wrapped around her waist as he looks down at her with a sweet expression.

If Lily didn't know any better, didn't know what happened just a few weeks after this photo was taken, she'd think the two people in that picture were going to end up together.

Truth be told, her heart still aches looking at this picture. She didn't lie when she told Marlene she doesn't fancy James anymore - she doesn't fancy present-day James at all. But past-James, the boy who always brought her sweets while she was studying and made her laugh even on her worst days and would've died to defend the people he cared about… she misses him.

It's for the best that nothing came of this picture though - something clearly illustrated by what's directly underneath it.

As she pulls aside that last photograph, the tone changes dramatically. Unlike the photographs, which unearth some sense of nostalgia in her, this fills her with something that toes the line between anger and disdain. It's a magazine article with the title _Quidditch's Newest Bad Boy_ emblazoned across the top of the page. Underneath are a series of pictures from a random nightclub, all with James front and centre. He's taking a shot of heaven knows what in one, dancing with a brunette in another, and snogging a totally different girl in the third.

Everything that follows is exactly the same: all snippets from _Witch Weekly_ or the social section of the _Prophet_ , starring James in some vaguely incriminating position - sometimes with his newest flavour of the week, sometimes obviously drunk or hungover, sometimes just generally looking like a complete pompous ass as he lounges in the VIP section of a club. Nearly every article _also_ includes a reference his prowess on the Quidditch field though, as if his ability to throw and catch a Quaffle with some degree of consistency is somehow a justification for the rest of it.

Truthfully, Lily's got no fucking clue why she's kept these, why she's let them infect the otherwise pleasant memories in this box associated with James and her Hogwarts years. But then again, it's an apt metaphor for what those stories have done to those memories within her own mind - tainted them with the knowledge that the dream of a boy from back then would soon become a nightmare of a man.

All of it feels dirty now. She's kept this dumb box of memories even as they've gotten ruined in the aftermath, and… god, she just wants to lock the gates on that part of her life and throw away the key forevermore.

She wants to burn it all.

And so that's exactly what she does.

"Incendio," she whispers, before she can think it through enough to regret it, and watches as the corner of an article catches fire.

The small blaze spreads quickly, flames licking at the edges of the papers as they start to shrivel and turn black, sending everything up in smoke. It's almost enchanting, watching as the memories - both good and bad - are incinerated in a burst of red and orange and gold.

The very last thing she sees before it all turns to ash is that one picture of them on the Astronomy Tower.

Good fucking riddance.

* * *

_**Seventh Year, June 1978** _

_The bass beat of the music is so loud that it's rattling the chandeliers in the Gryffindor Common Room - Lily thinks to herself that either someone did some awfully powerful silencing charms or that the faculty of Hogwarts have just decided that there are no rules in the aftermath of the Quidditch Cup final, because there's no way the party would be allowed to continue like this otherwise._

_People are dancing and talking animatedly to each other all throughout the room, and there's a makeshift bar set up in one corner. The actual trophy has long since been abandoned on a random table, and the only evidence that this is really a Quidditch party instead of just a normal one is that occasionally someone will shout 'Gryffindor!' and be answered with a chorus of cheers._

_Lily takes a sip of butterbeer, quite comfortable in her place on the couch, away from most of the action. At one point, Marlene and Mary were there with her, but then Marlene snuck off to go snog Dorcas somewhere, and Mary went off in pursuit of another drink and never came back to the couches. She's dancing with a sixth year boy now._

_So now she's alone, watching the party continue to unfold around her, feeling a bit like Jay Gatsby in her sense of detachment from the debauchery._

" _Liiiily!" That distance is abruptly shattered, as James jumps over the back of the couch and practically on top of her._

_It's abundantly clear to Lily that he's had more than his fair share of drinks tonight - although she supposes he's probably earned it. They'd clinched the Quidditch Cup in their final year and he has a professional position waiting for him on the other side of graduation - what's one night of letting go and celebrating that, really?_

_His proximity also has the unintended side effect of making her suddenly feel unexpectedly warm - she hopes he'll chalk the pink in her cheeks up to alcohol consumption rather than the reality in which she's blushing because of the way his thigh is pressed up against her own._

" _My favourite and most wonderful Seeker," he says to her with a wide grin. "What's got you hiding out in the corner of a party? You're missing all the action!"_

" _I can see all the action perfectly from right here, actually," she replies, taking another sip of her butterbeer._

_He laughs, and he's so close that Lily can smell the firewhiskey on his breath. "You make the game-winning catch and you're still completely sober at the victory party - you sure are a wild one, Evans."_

" _I'm not completely sober," she defends, waving the butterbeer at him as proof, even though the stuff is barely alcoholic._

" _You're still sitting in a corner alone while everyone around you is fucking celebrating the shit_ you _accomplished," he retorts, before pushing himself up to a standing position and only wobbling slightly. "Come on, you don't need to get drunk, but at least dance with me. Pleeeease?"_

_He holds out his hand, and Lily takes it, because of course she does. She doesn't even think twice about taking him up on an offer to dance, because she's been trying for months to pretend like she doesn't fancy him and failing_ miserably _to the point that everyone can read her feelings like an open book except him, and she'll take him up on whatever he offers._

_Once he pulls her up to standing, he doesn't drop her hand, not as they start moving towards the center of the room, not as they start making their way through the crowd, not as someone just as drunk as he is bumps into him. His hand only leaves hers when the force of that bump, combined with his own intoxication sends him slamming into a table._

_And not just any table, but the table where the Quidditch Cup is sitting - and the force with which he collides with the wood sends the cup teetering dangerously._

_It'll almost certainly break if it goes falling to the ground, and so Lily is actually immensely grateful that James let go of her, because it allows her to reach out and catch the trophy at the last possible minute, saving it from catastrophe._

" _Shit!" James swears, finding his balance again. "I don't even know how that - "_

_She just shakes her head at him admonishingly, but she's unable to hide the small grin from the part of her that's somehow amused with his antics. "This is why we can't have nice things," she tells him, looking around for a more secure place to put the trophy, far away from the sea of drunk teenagers. "I'm going to take this away so that you can't break it again."_

_She spots a nice high shelf in the corner of the room, and levitates the Cup over to it._

" _Now that my buzzkill sobriety has saved the day," she says as she turns back to James, "still want to dance?"_

_He smiles at her, and Lily finds that she doesn't really care that he's a little too drunk. She should probably be annoyed that he's been partying so much that he almost broke the thing he cares most about, but it's somehow oddly endearing on him; she's definitely seeing him with rose-coloured glasses, but she can't really find it in herself to be bothered by that._

" _You're too pretty to be a buzzkill."_

_At the time, she'd thought that night was an exception from the norm; James wouldn't always be that reckless and so willing to risk the things he cared about for a one-night good time._

_In hindsight, maybe that night should've been a warning._


	3. baby, let the games begin

The scrimmage match goes just about as expected - the six-player first team scrapes out a victory thanks to Mari being a miracle worker of a Seeker, but having only two Chasers _does_ put them at a marked disadvantage otherwise.

Lily sits and takes notes the whole time, and as usual, she's the only one of the coaches who does. But watching matches always gives her ideas - weaknesses to work on, new formations to experiment with, new plays to try. It's perhaps unorthodox compared to her counterparts, who don't take quite an academic approach to the game, but she knows she'd be missing out if she didn't keep record of things.

In literally any other situation, Lily would be absolutely thrilled that they're finally getting a third Chaser again. There are so many plays and drills they've been unable to fully execute with two-thirds of a Chaser team, and the full first string team will undoubtedly be a force to be reckoned with.

The entire rest of the program is _thrilled_ when they find out, as soon as the scrimmage comes to an end. The players are incredibly excited when it's announced that the search for a third Chaser has proved fruitful, and even _more_ so when it's announced just who that third Chaser is.

Corinne's the only other person to show even the slightest bit of reservation at the name 'James Potter,' but that look of concern fades as quickly as it'd come the moment that Charlie starts reciting some of James' stats from the previous season.

The first practice he's set to attend is a small, Chasers-only session on a Monday, designed to work on getting the three of them more familiar with each other before doing a full team session. Lily's attendance at that practice is entirely optional, and while she's normally the type to attend even the optional sessions on her work schedule, she chooses not to this time.

She's delaying the inevitable, she knows this, knows that she'll have to see his stupid face in person soon enough, but she likes the idea of waiting for a full-team practice - _there_ , at least, she can direct most of her focus to everything else that isn't him and hopefully avoid having to interact with him one-on-one.

She's got enough self-awareness of her short temper to know that she won't be able to hold back her frustration with him the moment she's alone with him. She's normally _great_ at faking a smile when she needs to, but it was always different with him. He always seemed to know exactly how to get under her skin.

And that, she imagines, is one thing that hasn't changed.

The night before he's set to start at Puddlemere, she dreams about him. And unfortunately, it's not some sort of acting out a revenge fantasy type of dream, which is what her conscious brain would've massively preferred. Rather, it's a lights-down-low, wandering-hands type of dream. She wakes up in the middle of the night, sheets twisted around her legs, breathing hard, and full of a profound sense of irritation - mostly at herself for her subconscious for daring to conjure any of those images.

It takes her a long time to fall asleep after that - she eventually takes half a Sleeping Draught to get through the rest of the night, because her mind just _won't_ stop racing. She keeps imagining all the potential ways she could see James for the first time in three years, and she starts to think that maybe the dread of it is even worse than actually seeing him again will be.

Despite not attending the Chaser session, she still goes into the coaching offices the next morning. One of the other assistants - McGinty, maybe - is running a ground session later in the day, and she figures she'll probably go help out at that one. It'll make up for her guilt for skipping the first optional session.

It seems, for all intents and purposes, to be a calculated decision.

However, it proves to be a poorly calculated one, because Lily fails to consider the contingency that James might make an appearance before practice. The offices are, after all, adjacent to the locker rooms - and share an access hallway with them.

She pushes the main door open and walks into the building, slightly zoned out from her lack of sleep and not really paying much attention to her surroundings. And so it's not until it's far too late that she looks up and realises that walking down the hallway, towards the exit and therefore right towards her, is none other than the very person she'd set this whole plan in place to avoid.

At this discovery, she experiences two very distinct trains of thought.

The first is that _fuck_ , he's _really_ gotten fit since school. It's not like he wasn't back then - though he _was_ a bit wiry and hadn't quite filled out his height yet - but now… Merlin and Morgana. His shoulders are noticeably broader, and even under a long-sleeved shirt she can tell that he took whatever weight-training sessions they did at Portree seriously. His hair is as dark and wild and messy as ever, and the round wire frames that once were an ever-present feature on his face are gone entirely. None of this is _new_ information - she's seen photos of him in the paper over the past few years - but seeing those changes in person is somehow significantly more alarming.

He's a thief, running off with girls' hearts and never saying sorry, and for the briefest of moments, Lily understands why they let him.

And somehow, that manages to annoy the shit out of her. He shouldn't have been allowed to get this hot while _also_ turning into a massive dick. Karma should've done something about that.

The second train of thought is that she would very much like to _not_ run into him right now, but there are exactly zero doors in this section of this godforsaken hallway, ruining any chance she might've had of making a convenient detour. She's got half a mind to just turn around and make a run for it, but she knows it's too late for that, and running off now will only make their inevitable meeting more awkward. She may want to avoid him, but she's not going to act like a fucking coward to do so.

So she sticks her chin up just a little bit higher, hoping she'll be able to walk past him without him recognising her - or worse, talking to her.

She's massively unlucky in that regard though - her whole morning's proving to be an unrelenting series of cursed events, really - because he notices her almost as soon as she's within a few metres of him. He actually freezes at the sight of her, eyes going wide in a way that she'd probably find comical if it didn't also ignite an anger that's significantly stronger.

Fuck, he hasn't even opened his mouth yet and he's already destroyed her self-restraint.

He blinks a few times, like he doesn't really believe she's standing there and that she's very well just a figment of his imagination. "Lily? Lily Evans? What are you doing here?"

So much for making it past him unnoticed.

She huffs, and it's oddly reminiscent of the way she used to address him in their early years of school. She didn't like him much _then_ either. "I'm on the coaching staff."

If it's even possible, he somehow looks even more bewildered at that answer. "You're... what? Since when do you care about professional Quidditch?"

It is, more or less, exactly what she expected out of him. In a slightly more rational state, she might've understood his confusion - at least partially. People don't usually just dive straight into Quidditch coaching positions right after Hogwarts; they usually play in the league for a couple of years or start off with coaching teen summer programs. And Lily hadn't exactly shown an interest in coaching or even any sort of investment in a pro team while they were in school either. So by those standards, Lily's presence is an anomaly, but by _god_ , he would've known this if he'd kept in touch with her, or _hell_ , just at least bothered to even _slightly_ care about what people he once called his friends were getting up to after they all graduated. It's not like she's a new face around here.

"Since about six months after graduation, when I _got_ this job," she answers icily. She's not going to give him any more information than that - both because she doesn't owe him an explanation and because even if she wanted to, there are many details about the way she ended up here that she _can't_ talk about with him anyways.

His eyebrows scrunch together, and one of his hands jumps up to his hair - it seems _that_ particular habit hasn't faded with time. "Huh, well, that's news to me."

"You know, that doesn't surprise me... _at all_." She doesn't try to conceal the simmering fury in her tone - and she vaguely thinks to herself that even if she'd been _trying_ to hide it, she would've failed miserably. Her instincts had been right - he's always had a way of bringing out the rawest version of her emotions, and that talent is yet another thing that apparently hasn't changed in three years.

He recognises the hostility in her tone, and matches it with a coldness of his own as his hand drops abruptly back down to his side. "What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?"

She squares her shoulders at him - she refuses to let herself be cowed into submission by the simmering threat in his tone. "I _mean_ that you're a self-absorbed prick who doesn't care about anyone but himself."

It's evident that he wasn't expecting that response - he looks as though she's just slapped him, mouth agape as he struggles for a response.

She doesn't wait around for him to come up with an answer though, just turns in the direction she was originally heading and walks away from the scene as quickly as her legs can carry her.

There will probably be hell to pay at some point for snapping at their newest 'star player' like that, but Lily can't really find it in herself to be worried about that just yet. Right now, she's riding on an adrenaline high; telling James _exactly_ how she feels about him now has given her a strange sort of rush.

She feels wholly alive, in a way only rivalled by flying.

When she gets back to her office and sits down at her desk, lets her breathing and heart rate slow, the rush of it gradually ebbs away.

Logically, it was probably the best first interaction with him that she could've asked for - she's made it abundantly clear that she has no plans to tolerate his bullshit, and she can't help but be proud of the stunned look she left him with.

She's not inclined to think of this thing with him as any sort of game, but if she _did_ deign to think of it that way, it'd be safe to say she's won the first point.

* * *

The one positive outcome of running into James first thing in the morning is that there's no point avoiding the Chasers-only practice anymore. And while she may not like _James_ , she loves the team, and she's incredibly interested in how the new trio will work together.

She doesn't go into the air like she would in a normal practice, like Harrison is right now. Instead, she lurks at the back of the stands, out of view of anyone on the pitch.

The three Chasers start off with a few laps, then some basic drills, then some free play. And with every move they make, it becomes more and more evident that James was a perfect choice to round out the trio. He's got so much of Michael's natural leadership, and the other two Chasers fall right back into that easy dynamic they'd gotten used to with their previous third.

James himself is… enchanting. From a purely professional standpoint, she can admit that he makes a broom look like an extension of himself, steering and controlling it like it's the most natural thing in the world. He's _graceful_ , even as he makes sharp turns or jumps for a Quaffle catch.

She's mesmerised by it; she usually watches Quidditch with the eye of a coach, looking for things to nitpick and potential flaws, but right now, she just lets herself enjoy the show, taking in the magic of it all. It's easy to see why people flock to these games, why tickets sell for sky-high prices, why everyone clamors to meet these players in person, when you let yourself get sucked into the beauty and excitement of it all.

She loses that, sometimes, being around it all the time.

After losing track of how long she's been there, she begrudgingly admits that James is the perfect addition to Puddlemere. She still doesn't think his skills should entirely erase the fact that he's a self-serving asshole off the pitch, like so many of the Quidditch commentators do, but he's exactly the kind of player _on_ the pitch that they need to dominate the English League this year.

She turns to head back to her office - she doesn't want to stay here too much longer and risk someone discovering that she's just lurking in the shadows instead of either helping with the practice or actually getting work done.

Never mind that she doesn't actually _have_ much work to do at the moment anyways, but it's more the principle of the thing. She'd never want to be accused of slacking off in any way; she doesn't have the luxury of half-arsing her job - not here, not with these people, not with the way she got her start.

So when she gets back to her office, she closes the door most of the way, to give off the illusion that she's hard at work. But as soon as she's behind closed doors, she slacks off entirely. She uses the enchanted notepad on her desk to send a brief message to Benjy - _my place, 9pm_ \- and reads the entire _Daily Prophet_ cover to cover.

She uses the kettle in her office to make a cup of tea - strong, because she's exhausted and needs all the caffeine she can get - and sips it while she reads.

Finally, when she's exhausted all of her other options, she grabs a miniature Quaffle out of her desk drawer, tossing it up in the air aimlessly. She's not sure when she picked this up as a means of entertaining her boredom, but it's gotten her through a lot, and she's gotten rather good at trick throws.

Lily's got no idea how long she keeps that up for.

Eventually though, her attention is captured by the sound of Harrison's voice coming down the hallway. He's talking to someone, giving them a tour of the facility, and Lily realises with a shiver that the person he's guiding around is almost certainly their new Chaser.

She abruptly drops the miniature Quaffle, letting it roll under her desk. She may not _technically_ have anything that she's working on right now, but if Harrison and James are about to stop by her office, then _by god_ , she's going to do her best to look incredibly busy.

Suddenly, a new worry strikes her - will he tell Harrison about the things she said to him while she's right in front of them?

She shakes that off almost immediately - James is a lot of things, but he's never been a snitch. He'd always been the type to solve problems by taking them into his own hands rather than going to an authority figure - something that got him into quite a lot of scrapes and frustrated the hell out of Lily when they were in school, but that she's quite grateful for right about now. Trying to explain to Harrison why she'd insulted their new player within minutes of meeting him would be an unmitigated nightmare and require far more oversharing with her boss than she'd ever like to indulge.

Sure enough, in less than a minute, there's a courtesy knock on her slightly-ajar door.

"Come in," she calls out, trying her best to act like she's not expecting this.

Her door swings open, revealing Harrison and James, the latter of whom is visibly freshly showered. She quickly turns her attention away from him, focusing on the head coach instead.

"I'm giving Mister Potter here a tour of the premises," he tells her.

Lily puts on a fake smile that borders on a simper. "Mister Potter, welcome to Puddlemere."

When she looks over at him, he's already got his eyes on her. He's studying her intensely, and if he's surprised by her change in tone from just a few hours ago, he doesn't show it.

"This is one of our assistant coaches, Lily Evans," Harrison explains, sending a shallow grin her way. "Don't be fooled by the pretty face - she's one of the toughest we've got."

Lily cringes internally at his words; there's no way in hell he'd be talking about any of the _other_ coaches like that. But externally, she keeps up the artificial smile as she looks over at her boss.

Harrison suddenly looks between her and James, wheels in his head turning. "Now that I think about it, if my math is right, you two were at Hogwarts around the same time, yes?"

"We were - Evans was Head Girl my last year." James grins at her, and it's almost devilish - teeth bared and a glint of something practically predatory in his eyes.

"Oh, you must've given her hell then, I'm sure." Harrison laughs and looks at James, like they're both in on some inside joke, entirely oblivious to the tension in the air.

But James _still_ doesn't look away from her, and there's an unmistakable challenge in his eyes. She looks right back at him, careful not to betray any emotion while Harrison's in the room. "I imagine I did," he says eventually, finally breaking eye contact with Lily to look back at his coach.

Lily has to bite back a bitter laugh at the fact that he's conveniently choosing not to mention the fact that _he_ himself was also Head Boy that year. He'd been working with her, not against her.

Does he really care so much about his new life, his new reputation, that he'd rather act like the things before it didn't happen? Does he really think the fact that he was Head Boy - the supposed pinnacle of a model student - would damage his present-day identity so much that he has to rewrite his own past?

The idea that he's _ashamed_ of that person, and is _proud_ to be this one - so opposite to Lily's feelings about past and present-day James - sets off another wave of anger under her skin. She tightens her grip on her quill, almost to the point of breaking it.

She sees James' gaze drop to her white knuckles, then come back up to her face. He smirks at her - he _knows_ he's riled her up and he's _proud_ of it.

"Yes, we'll have to reminisce on our Hogwarts days some time," she answers diplomatically, even though she has no intention of doing _anything_ of the sort. "But it can wait - I wouldn't want to keep you from finishing your tour of the training complex."

"Yeah, I'll see you around," he replies, the smug look on his face seemingly becoming a permanent fixture. "It's good to see you again, Evans."

Her quill _does_ snap at that - although luckily, Harrison has started talking to James again as they move to the next office, so no one else hears it.

How _dare_ he say it's 'good to see her again' that casually - like they were merely acquaintances in school who just so happened to run into each other after graduation, and not close friends until he'd unceremoniously cut her off.

And the goddamn self-satisfied grin on his face the whole time, like he was _intentionally_ picking his words to say _just_ the things he knew would piss her off the most. Like he was trying to bait her, like he wanted to see if he could make her snap.

If that's how he wants to do things, then so be it. If he wants to turn this into some sort of challenge, she'll gladly take him up on that; not only that, but she'll win.

If he wants to play with her, then baby, let the games begin.

* * *

**_Seventh Year, August 1977_ **

_Lily sits alone in a booth at the Leaky Cauldron with two butterbeers in front of her, occasionally looking up at the door while also trying to avoid eye contact with anyone else in the bar in the process. James had owled her a few days ago, asking to meet her here. She should've expected he'd be late._

_Not that he's actually late yet - she's just early - but he's never exactly been known for his punctuality._

_She's just resigned herself to waiting at least another ten minutes, when suddenly, a dark-haired boy with glasses is sliding into the seat across from her._

_She checks her watch. "You're… early," she blurts out, in lieu of an actual greeting._

" _Yeah, well, new year, new me," he replies, with a grin._

" _I think that's more of a January thing."_

" _I think it's perfectly applicable for new school years," he reasons, before looking at the mug in front of him. "Is this for me?"_

" _Well, I certainly didn't order two for myself," she says, taking a sip of her own drink. Truthfully, she'd bought her drink ahead of time on purpose - if she'd waited until James had arrived, he'd undoubtedly try to buy her drink for her, and that'd just inevitably end up feeling far too much like a date for her to be comfortable with._

_And buying James' as well was a last-minute decision after the man by the door had openly ogled at her as she walked up to the bar and made her feel distinctly uncomfortable; the second drink on the table made it clear that someone else was joining her and that the seat across from her was_ not _up for grabs_.

" _Thanks, Evans." He takes a sip of butterbeer, and Lily takes the moment of silence to study him for the first time since he arrived. She's almost positive he's gotten even taller since the last time she saw him - the boy's never going to stop growing, it seems - and his hair is shorter than it was at the end of term, although no less manic._

" _So, what was it that you needed to talk about that you wanted to tell me in person?" Lily doesn't cut any corners, and gets right to the reason that they're here._

_James sets his mug down slowly, his hand burying itself in his hair. That hair mussing annoyed her in the past, but she's come to realise that sometimes it's just a nervous habit of his, not something he's doing for her benefit. He's stopped obnoxiously showing off and persistently flirting with her, but the hair thing has remained._

" _Congratulations on Head Girl, by the way," he answers, avoiding answering her question directly. "Remus told me you got it - although really, I wasn't exactly surprised. There's no one else in our year who deserves it more."_

_She can feel her cheeks warm at the compliment. "Thank you," she says. "I've still yet to figure out who Head Boy is, and Remus said he didn't get it and didn't know who it was, so I've been trying to pull a list of who all it could be and determining whether or not I'm going to be miserable working with them, and - "_

_He interrupts her rambling. "I'm Head Boy."_

_She's not quite sure she heard him right, so she says nothing, waits for him to elaborate or repeat himself._

" _That's why I asked you to meet me before we went back to school," he says, not really meeting her eyes. "I even owled Dumbledore about it, just to confirm he hadn't, you know, completely fucked up and sent the badge to the wrong person, but… yeah. I wanted to tell you in person, because I know I'm probably the very last person you would've ever expected to have to work with this year, and throwing that on you right before the first prefects' meeting seemed like too much of a shock to put on a person, so… here we are."_

_He looks out of breath when he finishes, which kind of makes sense - she doesn't think he took a single breath in that entire speech._

_She has to think about her response before answering him. "You're definitely not the_ last _person I would've expected," is what she eventually leads with._

_And it's genuine - while it's true that Heads are most often chosen from the prefects of that year, the whole point of a Head is that they're a leader, someone who can take charge in a situation and influence the student body. And both of those are things that James is undeniably good at._

" _You've been Quidditch captain for two years now," she continues, "and no one can say you don't have significant sway over most of the Hogwarts student body. It's an unorthodox choice, but it makes sense, in a way."_

_He looks up at her. "Really?"_

_He seems so genuinely befuddled by her reaction that she almost wants to laugh. "Sure," she tells him. "I mean, you're probably going to go down in history as the Head Boy with the largest detention record while serving in the role though."_

_Something shifts in his expression at that, and suddenly, he's incredibly serious. "I don't want that record," he replies. "I… I still don't really understand_ why _I'm Head Boy, but since it seems like the title is sticking, I'm not going to fuck it up. If I'm going to be Head Boy, I want to be a good one."_

_If it weren't for the look on his face, Lily would think he's taking the piss. James Potter, model student? The concept is laughable - seeing just how many ways he can get into trouble with his mates has been a central mission of his since first year. But the usual sparkle of mischief in his eyes when he's messing around is completely gone as he addresses her now._

_She exhales. "Wow. New year, new you, indeed."_

" _Mind you, I'll almost definitely still end up in a couple detentions this year, just hopefully not_ quite _as many as years past."_

" _Of course," she nods. "Sometimes you just have to sneak out past curfew and booby trap the Slytherin common room, you know?"_

_He chuckles, serious demeanour beginning to fade away. "Hey now, there was never any proof that I was the one responsible for that."_

_She'd never admit it to him, but all of the Slytherins showing up to breakfast the next morning with their robes covered in really bad lion drawings had made her laugh so hard she'd choked on her pumpkin juice._

" _I'd say the fact that you spent half of Charms the day before doodling atrociously proportioned lions is some solid proof, but that's just me." She takes a sip of her butterbeer, looking at him coyly._

_James coughs. "You saw that and you didn't turn me in? Consider me stunned, Evans."_

_She shrugs. "I'm not a_ complete _killjoy, even if I_ have _been a prefect for the past two years."_

" _You know, that's actually what I wanted to ask you about," James replies, then backtracks when he realises the implication of his words. "Not the killjoy thing, I don't think you're a killjoy at all - I mean the prefect thing. You've been a prefect for two years already, and I've got no idea what I'm getting myself into, and if I want to do this well… I figure I should probably learn what's actually expected of me."_

_Wow, he's really committed to taking this seriously. And she respects him a lot for that. She'd never expected there'd come a day where she'd be teaching James Potter the ropes of how to lead a group of prefects, but she finds that she's completely forgotten the names of anyone else who could've been Head Boy. The idea of having him as her partner in this endeavor for the next year seems… almost downright pleasant._

" _Alright then, class is in session," she says, clasping her hands together on the table. "How to be the best Head Boy Hogwarts has ever seen, taught by yours truly. Are you ready for it?"_


	4. now i'm lying on the cold hard ground

The thing that she has with Benjy is simple, uncomplicated.

It started out of convenience - once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, they ran into each other at a bar on one of those rare occasions where Marlene had succeeded in dragged her out, and they got to catching up on their lives since graduation. He'd been a few years above her in school - Head Boy when she'd just been appointed prefect - so their paths had crossed just enough for them to be interested in how the other's life had changed in the years since.

Benjy was getting over a break-up and Lily simply didn't have time to date around - nor did she have any desire to find something serious anyways - and somehow, a few drinks later, it accidentally morphed into Lily going home with him.

They truthfully don't have a lot in common outside the bedroom, but in it, they're more than compatible.

And so from that one night, it's become somewhat of a series of regular mistakes. Once every few weeks or so, one of them owls the other, and the other shows up on their doorstep that night. There are no feelings involved whatsoever - it's just shagging, and that's all Lily really wants or needs right now. A way to release some tension, without any of the added strings or risk of heartbreak. He doesn't care, and she likes that.

He knocks on her door at nine on the dot, and she doesn't even bother with a hello before grabbing him by the shirt collar and pressing her lips to his.

Benjy doesn't complain. They don't have much to talk about anyways.

Somehow, this is exactly what Lily needs. She'd sent a message to Benjy _before_ that second run-in with James, but even if she hadn't, she certainly would've sent it afterwards. Sex isn't, perhaps, the _healthiest_ option as an outlet for her frustrations, but it's probably better than drugs or drinking herself into a stupor, so she contents herself with the knowledge that she could be doing far worse.

And then Benjy slides his hand down her pants and all thoughts of what might or might not qualify as a 'healthy' coping mechanism goes straight out the window.

They stumble into her bedroom, leaving a trail of haphazardly discarded clothes in their wake. They fall into bed with a practiced ease, hands and mouths wandering with few real words exchanged.

She rides him until they're both cursing incoherently, and Lily's barely come down from her own high when she rolls off of him, standing up from the bed and going into the bathroom.

They do this every time - someone flees the scene and puts distance between the two of them almost immediately after they fuck. Lingering too long in the aftermath, letting the intimacy of the situation wash over them, is something both parties are keen on avoiding. It's probably why they've made it so far without either of them developing feelings - there's a clear delineation that what they're doing here is just sex, never making love.

In the harshly bright light of her bathroom, she can see the imprint of where Benjy's fingertips dug into her hips, sure to leave a bruise tomorrow. Neither of them are exactly gentle when they fuck - she's quite positive Benjy has marks of his own from her own hands.

It had surprised her, the first time, because she'd always known Benjy as this awkward, bumbling teenager - the rough, confident man she'd been acquainted with in her bedroom felt like a completely different person than the one she'd once known. But then again, she supposes it would be just as much of a shock for anyone else to learn that the sweet, teacher's pet Head Girl at Hogwarts is exactly the same.

Although she's not sure anyone would call her 'sweet' at all anymore.

When she steps out of the bathroom, her dressing gown on but left unfastened, Benjy is sitting on the edge of her bed, buttoning his shirt back up.

"You know you're allowed to talk about what's got you so upset," he comments dryly, not even looking up at her. "Just because this is a no-feelings-attached sort of thing doesn't mean we're not allowed to exchange any words ever."

She wraps her dressing gown around her and crosses her arms, more self-conscious of the way he's read her emotions than she is of her naked body. "What makes you think I'm upset about something?"

He shrugs. "Just a hunch."

She sighs. He's actually one of the few people who there's no harm in ranting to, so she figures she might as well vent to him a little bit instead of lying her way out. "James Potter is now with Puddlemere, and his first day was today."

A look of recognition crosses Benjy's features. "Ah, he was in your year, wasn't he? Turned into a bit of a twat after graduation though, it seems like."

Lily thinks back to her interactions with James today, thinks back to that devilish smirk of his that won't stop haunting her thoughts. "More than just a bit of a twat, really," she replies, sinking into the armchair in the corner of her room.

"Didn't he have a thing for you when we were in school too?"

She laughs, instantly aware of just how much Benjy missed in the timeline of her and James by only seeing up to the end of fifth year. "For a while, yeah," she answers. "But then we were really good friends for a while too, all the way up until we graduated and he got too infatuated with fame and wild parties and fucking every girl he laid eyes on to care about anyone he went to school with."

Her words come out with such unexpected vitriol that Benjy cringes, but that doesn't stop her from finishing. "And he was just… _god_ , he was acting like such a self-entitled prick today. Like… like there was nothing wrong with how he left things, like he never loved me, or anyone, or anything, from before."

Benjy finally looks up at her, fully clothed now, and gives her an appraising look. "So you're hurt."

"I'm not hurt, I'm pissed off," she answers defensively.

He scoffs. "Sure, whatever you say," he replies, clearly not believing her. " _I_ think you've just decided to mask your real feelings with anger because being angry gives you a protective shell, but that's just me."

He shrugs casually, like he hasn't just thrown an incisive analysis of her emotional state at her like a knife to the chest.

She can't figure out how to respond to that, and as a result just gapes at him as he stands up, fixes his hair, and walks to her bedroom door.

"This was fun," he says, and leaves it at that as he first exits her bedroom and then, based on the sound of her front door opening and closing, exits her entire flat as well.

Lily just sits there, knees curled to her chest, trying to fight off Benjy's words. She doesn't give enough of a damn about James Potter anymore to be hurt by him. She doesn't _want_ to be his friend anymore, doesn't want anything to do with him really, so why would she be hurt by him acting like he doesn't know her?

Benjy's wrong - there's nothing more to this than cold, hard fury.

She's _angry_ that he's been able to turn into this horrible sort of person and face no consequences for it. She's _angry_ that he's a complete prick and still one of the most successful up-and-coming players in the League, his athletic skill kept completely separate from his behaviour off the pitch. She's _angry_ that she has to put up with his arrogance again, with none of the gentleness of his nature that she'd once grown attached to.

And that's all there is to it.

* * *

The first full-team practice comes the following afternoon, and it naturally finds Lily on her broom, weaving through the players and barking out orders.

She's comfortable here - despite the sense of constantly feeling like she has to prove that she belongs, it's undeniable that she's well-suited for coaching. Her notes from the scrimmage match have been etched into her memory, and she's making sure to bring them up whenever she can.

She earns herself an approving nod from Harrison as she makes a comment on Corinne's dodging.

Beyond her boss, she catches another set of eyes trained on her more than once during practice. James seems positively confounded by her field presence, but also sometimes just looks at her with intense interest.

The first time she comments on one of his shots, there's a brief moment where she's sure he's about to fall off his broom.

It lasts only half a second, and goes unnoticed by anyone else, but it's enough to make Lily laugh under her breath. If he's surprised that she's treating him just like every single other player on this pitch, he sure as hell better get used to it. She's turned keeping her personal feelings fenced off from her work into a fucking art form.

The practice goes on for nearly three hours - James's arrival to the team is so late in the off-season that there's a lot of catching-up required for them to be ready for the first match of the season in a month and a half. But regardless, they look good, and Harrison tells the team such when they all huddle together at the end of practice.

Lily's not on equipment duty today, so she goes straight into the locker room. She showers quickly, changing into yet another iteration of her go-to uniform of a sweatshirt and joggers, her hair instantly creating a wet spot on her back before she has a chance to use a drying spell on it.

"So," Mari says to Lily, as soon as Lily walks up to her locker to retrieve her bag, "got any exciting plans for the rest of your day?"

"Hardly," she replies. "You?"

"Other than dealing with two toddlers, which is _always_ some form of excitement, nope," Mari answers. "I don't do exciting things anymore - I've got to live vicariously through the rest of you."

"Sorry to disappoint on that front, then."

Mari laughs at that, before zipping up her bag and telling Lily goodbye. Lily's just about to follow suit and leave, but she's interrupted just as she finishes getting all her stuff packed up.

"Hey, Evans," a voice behind her says, and she recognises its source before she's even fully turned around. "Can we talk?" His eyes shift to the other players still around them. "You know, catch up on our lives after Hogwarts like you suggested the other day?"

_Fuck_ , she'd never expected James to actually hold her to that. And she's got a pretty good feeling that it's just a cover for something else that he wants to talk about instead. "Er, sure," she answers. "When?"

"How about now?"

She doesn't think 'no' is a valid option right now, given that she'd _just_ been talking about not having anything else to do today, and there are still other people around them, undoubtedly eavesdropping on this conversation. As far as they know, she and James are nothing but casual acquaintances - rejecting his seemingly innocent offer would surely raise questions.

But even still, she doesn't even know _why_ he wants to talk to her.

"Now works." She does her best to conceal the defeated resignation in her tone.

"Great," he says, flashing her a grin that she knows is entirely for show.

She throws her bag over her shoulder and follows him out of the locker room, not really knowing where they're going or what to expect.

Which means she's certainly not prepared for what happens next, which is James dragging her into a large storage closet and immediately casting a _Muffliato_ on the door.

He turns to face her, arms crossed and an expectant look on his face. "Do you mind explaining to me what the fuck that was about?"

"What?" It takes more effort than she cares to admit to not let herself be distracted by the way his biceps flex against the fabric of his T-shirt.

"You calling me a self-absorbed prick and then just… fucking walking away. Where the hell did that come from?"

Is he… is he really _that_ fucking dense? It's suddenly a hell of a lot easier not to focus on his body when he's being this much of a twat.

"You literally didn't even know I worked here," she replies, and her voice is soft, deadly. "You graduated Hogwarts and got sucked into Quidditch and just… what, decided to forget about everyone and everything from your school days?"

He scoffs. "Well forgive me for being surprised to see you for the first time in three years, at my new team's training facilities of all places."

"You're missing the point," she says, exasperation evident in her voice.

He cocks his head, challenging her to continue. "Which is?"

Instead of answering his question, she flips one back on him. "Why'd you lie about not being Head Boy to Harrison yesterday?"

"That doesn't answer my question. And I didn't lie."

"Well you certainly skirted the truth pretty hard," she retorts. "And I'm not answering your question, because if you really can't figure it out on your own, then you've become even thicker than I thought."

He doesn't budge. "Excuse me?"

"Tell me," she adds, unable to control the vitriol on the tip of her tongue, "what was it that killed all your brain cells - too many bludgers to the head or too many lines of dragonflame?"

Anger flashes in his eyes, but it doesn't last. He doesn't answer her either, and somehow that's finally the last straw. She's still not sure if he's playing dumb or has actually completely lost all sense of morality and self-awareness, but either way, she's fed up with it.

"You were so good for a while, you know," she snaps. "Got your ego in check, stopped acting like the entire fucking universe revolves around you... and then you go off and become a professional Quidditch player and stick your head right up your own ass again."

His hand flies up to his hair, and he leans against the door. "What are you even talking about, Evans?"

"Just because you didn't give a fuck what anyone else in your graduating class got up to after Hogwarts doesn't mean no one else did. I've seen the stories of what you get up to when you're not on the pitch."

He looks at her blankly, blinking a few times as he registers what she's said, and then his face twists into something darker, thunderous.

He takes a step towards her, so that she has to tilt her head up to look at him. "And you believed them? You believed what some trashy tabloids were printing about me over what you knew about me, the person you knew I was?"

She feels something twist in her stomach at his words and the implication behind them, the implication that the magazines may not have gotten the whole story, but she refuses to cower under his glare; she's not going to give him what he wants and take a step back. He keeps trying to do this, trying to intimidate her into backing off, and she's not going to let him.

"I don't know you anymore," she says simply.

He falters at that, something unreadable crossing his features. Eventually, he takes a step back again, shaking his head. "You always did look for the very worst in me, didn't you, Evans?" he mutters darkly.

That's absolutely _not_ true - she's looked for the very best of him in times when it wasn't there, and been ruefully disappointed as a result. Looking for the worst in him just seems more likely to be the accurate conclusion at this point; he's got no right to be angry about that after everything.

"Yeah, well, it's not like I've had to look very hard."

She's baiting him, she _knows_ that, but the verbal sparring is something she can't resist.

"Ah yes, because _you're_ just an absolute bloody saint, right?" he says, and there's an unmistakable fury in his voice now. She's oddly pleased with that, with the fact that she's goaded him to her level. "Lily fucking Evans, judging the rest of us mere mortals from her massive high horse, because she's never made a single mistake in her entire life. And why bother with trying to separate fact from fiction in making those judgments, because she might as well just pick the worst version of the story and stick with it, yeah?"

A laugh bubbles from Lily's lips, sardonic and hollow. "I never claimed to be a saint, and trust me, I'm not. But I know a fuckboy when I see one, and you, my dear, have turned into the spitting image of one."

He just stares at her, his features hardened.

"You asked me why I called you a self-absorbed prick the other day," she says, her voice quieter now, "and the simple answer is that it's because you are one. You stopped giving a damn about me - about _anyone_ \- after we graduated, and next thing I know you're all over every tabloid getting trashed and fucking a new girl every night. Your reputation says everything I need to know to confirm that I'm right about you."

He throws his hands up in the air, and that's when Lily knows she's fully cracked him. "For _fuck's_ sake, I worked my ass off for _years_ to get to where I am - you really think so little of me that you think I'd just fucking throw all that out the window just so I could get fucked up every single night? Do you really fucking think I'm capable of doing all of that and still being able to play like I do? Because there's no way - you're a fucking assistant coach, you know what types of regimens we're held to, and you just… you know what? Fuck this. I don't owe you an explanation."

"You don't owe me an explanation?" she repeats back to him. " _You don't owe me an explanation_? Potter, you owed me like _five_ explanations _years_ ago. I can't believe you can't fucking see that."

"Maybe so, but I sure as hell don't owe you one now," he replies, stepping away from her once more. "Not when you're too busy making accusations to even listen anyways."

And with that, he turns the door handle and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him so that Lily's all alone in the darkness.

Of course he just left her in a fucking storage closet. That's just totally on brand for him at this point. He just flies away and leaves her on the cold, hard ground. Fucking classic.

She doesn't even bother leaving the closet to Apparate home, throwing her bag on the couch when she gets there with perhaps a little more force than necessary. She just… _god_ , his inability to even _acknowledge_ that he's turned into a totally different person since graduation, and that he's done some pretty fucked-up things since then, it's all just _so_ infuriating.

He needs to learn to take responsibility for his own damn actions. Photographs can't lie. There's overwhelming evidence that he's _exactly_ the person she said he is, regardless of his insistence to the contrary.

But her attention is quickly diverted from James and their argument when she notices that something came in through her mail slot - a glossy envelope addressed to a Calypso Selwyn.

* * *

**_Seventh Year, April 1978_ **

_If given a list of options of how to spend her Friday night, Professor Slughorn's monthly dinner parties would certainly not earn a spot anywhere near the top of her list._

_It's not that she's got anything against the professor himself - she actually quite likes him, and he's positively enamoured with her and her potions talent - but the company he invites to these things is… well, most of them aren't really the type of people she'd ever like to grab coffee with after she graduates, despite how many times she's been invited to do so._

_Especially the man she's currently talking to, whose name she's long forgotten at this point, but has taken to waxing poetic about his dragon handling experience to her. Which is a topic that she, truthfully, could not give fewer fucks about. And despite that, she's nodding along interestedly, asking questions that make him light up and go off on yet_ another _tangent, and generally just being far more charitable towards him than she should be._

_It's turned into a bit of a game at this point - seeing just how many times she can feign total fascination and how many of Slughorn's esteemed guests end up singing her praises to her professor by the end of the night. It's not like there's much else by the way of entertainment at these sorts of things._

_She asks him a question that causes him to spark off into a long speech about Antipodean Opaleyes, and it's as he's speaking that she notices the headmaster lingering in the back of the room - which is surprising on its own given that she's never seen him at a Slug Club party before. What's even more alarming is that Dumbledore's eyes are trained on her._

_She doesn't know what to make of that at all._

_But she turns her attention back to the man in front of her instead of lingering on it too long. "It seems to me, then, that they're overclassified, aren't they? Out of a stigma towards dragons rather than an actual reflection of their danger level, yeah?"_

_The man - Ernest? Eustice? Earnhardt? - claps his hands together gleefully at her words. "Exactly!" he exclaims. "Your understanding of dragonkind is really excellent - are you_ sure _I can't interest you in a career in dragon handling?"_

_Quite literally, over her dead body. She doesn't even have an O.W.L. in Care of Magical Creatures. "I suppose I'm not totally opposed," she lies easily._

" _But she's got a much more promising career in Potions!" Slughorn appears out of nowhere at her side, jovially talking her up once again._

_She once preened at his compliments of her potion-making abilities - brewing had been her ideal career path until she fell out of love with it somewhat in sixth year - but now she feels a sense of shame at his words. She doesn't know how she'll break it to him that she's actually no longer got any intention of following the path he thinks she's meant for._

" _Lily, my girl," Slughorn says to her, "there's someone else I want you to meet. A good friend of mine, great Ministry connections…"_

_Lily looks over at… Eugene, maybe, and smiles. "It was a real pleasure to meet you, sir."_

" _And you as well, Miss Evans. If you ever change your mind about pursuing a career with dragons, send me an owl."_

" _Thank you," she replies, before being whisked off to yet another one of Slughorn's guests._

_The night continues in much the same fashion, until Lily's game is no longer fun anymore, and her feet hurt, and she wants nothing more than to collapse in her four-poster for a long night's sleep._

_And so she says her goodbyes, slipping out of the party and into the cool air of the Hogwarts castle._

_She should probably go straight up to Gryffindor Tower - after all, her whole reason for leaving was to go to sleep - but she finds herself taking the long way up. There's something about the castle that's incredibly peaceful late at night, and she's well aware that her days left here are dwindling._

_And so she wanders for a bit, content in her loneliness, until…_

_She stops in her tracks when she realises that Dumbledore is in the hallway as well._

" _Miss Evans, what has you wandering the halls at this hour?" the headmaster asks, his tone betraying nothing but innocent curiosity._

_But there has to be more to it, she's sure of that. He knows exactly why she's out and where she was - hell, he was there himself not too long ago. She made eye contact with the man in the middle of the party._

" _Slughorn's party, sir."_

" _Ah, yes," he replies. "Horace so often tells me how much his guests are positively enamoured with you - you certainly know how to leave a lasting impression on those who see themselves as the upper echelon in wizarding society."_

" _Thank you?" she answers tentatively. She can't tell whether he means that as a compliment or what. Knowing the headmaster, he's almost certainly leading into something else._

" _Walk with me, won't you?" he asks her. "I do love wandering the castle late at night - it's oh-so-peaceful, and a wonderful way to have a conversation without being… overheard."_

_She doesn't miss the way he scans the area around them as he talks, as if double-checking that they are, in fact, alone. He doesn't wait for her to answer him properly, just begins walking down the corridor with the expectation that she'll join him._

_And she does._

" _As I'm sure you've noticed," he begins, as soon as she catches up to him, "the faction of wizarding society that's fanatically obsessed with blood purity has grown increasingly restless over the past few years."_

" _I assume you're talking about the attacks on muggleborns, sir."_

" _I am indeed," he answers. "Although truth be told, their actions have been far more than just that. Under a more unified leadership than what they've got now, I imagine that the damage they could inflict would be… catastrophic."_

" _Like what happened with Grindelwald, you mean?" Lily asks, thinking of Dumbledore's past experience taking down the same sort of fanaticism._

_The headmaster hums. "Yes, a bit like that, I imagine."_

_There's a brief lull in the conversation, wherein Lily doesn't really know what to say next, and Dumbledore doesn't seem to be making any moves to elaborate on anything._

_Finally, Lily takes the bait, if only to avoid making the silence any more awkward. "So what does that have to do with me? Why are you telling me about it, sir?"_

_Dumbledore looks over at her with a twinkle in his eyes, and it tells her that Lily's said exactly what he wanted her to, set him up perfectly for where he's trying to lead the conversation._

" _For the past few years, I've been developing… an underground army of sorts," he explains as they turn a corner. "A group of people - each with a very specific set of skills - who can keep an eye on things, stop whatever they can, and minimise the damage these supremacists are attempting to inflict."_

" _Would I know any of them?" she asks._

_He hums. "When I say that the entire organization is underground, Miss Evans, I mean that it's underground even to its members. Even those on the inside of it don't know who else is involved. It's a… precaution of sorts - that way one set of loose lips can't take the entire group down."_

" _Oh."_

" _But to go back to your initial question, I'm telling you about this because I'd like you to join us - if you're willing to, that is."_

_Lily furrows her brow at that. "You said every person in the group is in there because they've got a specific set of skills."_

" _Indeed."_

" _Then what are you recruiting me for?"_

_Dumbledore laughs quietly. "I would've thought it rather obvious, Miss Evans, based on my earlier comments about your behaviour at Professor Slughorn's parties."_

_If possible, she's even more confused by that. "That his guests seem to like me?"_

" _You have a rather uniquely powerful ability to charm even the most disinterested person," he tells her, "even if you yourself have no interest either - that dragon handler tonight, for example, even though you never even took Care of Magical Creatures in the first place. I actually believe it was at the very bottom of your third year course sign-up list, if I'm not mistaken."_

_How the fuck does he remember that? Hell,_ she'd _nearly forgotten she'd ranked it that low. "That's correct, sir."_

" _That sort of charm is exactly how you get secrets out of even the most tight-lipped of wizards. It's an impressive skill, being able to work your way into people's good graces so effortlessly, especially when it is… perhaps undeserved."_

_That should maybe sting a bit, but the thing is… she's inclined to agree with him. She doesn't really deserve the praise she gets from most of those people - she's just good at saying the right things to earn it._

" _So how does that tie into your… group? What are you asking me to do?"_

" _I'm asking you to be a set of eyes on the inside," he replies simply, like it's the most natural sort of equivalence._

_Lily, on the other hand, gives him a disbelieving look, not thinking it equal at all. "Sir, I'm a muggleborn. I hardly think I can work my way into a group of pureblood supremacists to spy on them when I'm the very type of person they're trying to kill off."_

_He just smiles at that, a bit of mischief in his eyes. "Who ever said you'd be going in as yourself?"_

_She just stares at him. "How?"_

" _That, Miss Evans, is a set of details I cannot share with you until I know you're committed to the task. I'm asking a lot of you - this isn't a decision you should take lightly, so I won't ask for an answer tonight. Take some time to think about it, and let me know when you've arrived at your decision."_

_And with that, he turns on his heel and walks the opposite direction, leaving her alone in the halls again, with a lot more on her mind than was there just a few minutes ago._

_The next week, Mulciber puts Mary in the Hospital Wing and there's an attack on the Muggle village ten minutes from Lily's hometown, and she marches to the Headmaster's Office with her answer._


	5. you've gotta leave before you get left

The transformation from Lily Evans the muggleborn low-ranking Quidditch coach into Calypso Selwyn the pureblood socialite is one she's got down to a science.

The glamour charms are relatively simple - changing her hair from a rich auburn to a platinum blonde, her green eyes to a steely grey. The rest is accomplished with makeup; whereas Lily normally wears none of it, the thick layers of it that she puts on for parties transform her face entirely. The contour, the false lashes, and the dark lipstick all serve to make her reflection wholly unfamiliar to even herself.

And while her normal day-to-day uniform consists almost exclusively of athletic attire, her alter ego wears dazzling dress robes that leave few of her curves to the imagination.

She picks a bloodred one tonight, that sits just off her shoulders and dips delicately in the center of her chest. The fitted fabric glimmers with every movement like flames on her skin, in perfect complement to the crimson red paint on her lips.

It's her warpaint and her battle armour; and instead of spells and curses, her weapons of choice include her saccharine words, her quick wit, and of course, her body.

She's quite certain that, when Dumbledore first tapped her as a potential informant for the Order, his intention wasn't that she become some sort of coveted prize amongst pureblood supremacists. He'd probably be appalled to discover the truth of how she manages to provide him with all the information she does. But he's never questioned her strategies, and they have thus far proven incredibly effective.

It's a multifaceted sort of thing, the way she's able to do all of it so covertly, without raising any suspicions. The first is that she's a woman - and amidst blood status superiority complexes is also a deep-seated sexism, and therefore none of the pureblood chauvinists think themselves capable of being outwitted by a simple girl.

And because of that, they also don't care much what she's up to when she's not at these dinner parties and galas. No one has once asked Calypso Selwyn what she does during the day; so long as they get to touch her and trade flirtatious remarks with her every so often, they don't expect her to speak much or have any sort of humanity otherwise.

She'd hate that in any other situation, but it's ultimately to her advantage in this one.

The second is that she's impossibly careful to never allow herself to be the only other person in the room. She's able to pull this off under the guise of chastity - she may put her body out for show, but no respectable man will want to marry her if there's talk that she's already been the bedfellow of another, so of course she can't _possibly_ let herself spend too much time alone with any of them. The whole concept is complete bullshit, given just how much the pureblood men themselves sleep around, but it's an effective cover.

If she's never the only person in the room, she'll never be the sole suspect if and when they eventually realise there's a spy in their ranks. Bad things happen when she's the only person in the room - she learned _that_ lesson the hard way.

And finally, there's the fact that she's invariably really fucking _good_ at what she does. Dumbledore had seen it in her at Slug Club, the way that she's able to charm her way through these tedious dinner parties, collecting information and goading secrets out into the open.

If anything, her skill in that regard has only improved in the three years she's been keeping this act up. In all that time, she's only fucked up once. And still, she made it out alive and with her cover intact.

So all in all, a pretty solid record.

The letter that came to her two nights ago was an invitation - the Malfoys are putting on yet another one of their elaborate dinner parties, this time celebrating the engagement of the eldest Malfoy to Narcissa Black, and of course, anyone within the Sacred Twenty-Eight is on the guest list for those.

She hates Malfoy Manor. She can't really put a finger on it, because it's no different than the other pureblood mansions that are ostentatiously decorated with crystal chandeliers and marble fireplaces, complete with house elves flitting around underfoot doing all the manual labour of the household, but something about the place unsettles her.

She Apparates to just outside the manor gates. They open for her almost immediately - she's got the dinner party invitation tucked into her dress robes, and the magical gates can sense that she's on the list of permitted attendees. From there, it's a decent walk up the path to the house, which somehow looks even more ominous than usual in the late evening darkness.

There's a calming sort of silence surrounding Lily as she walks up to the front door, and she uses it to collect her thoughts, to let herself fully slip into this character as she's done so many times before.

The door swings open before she even has a chance to knock, revealing none other than the patriarch of the manor himself, Abraxas Malfoy. He's apparently taken it upon himself to greet guests in the foyer, no doubt using the opportunity to boast about the manor to every new arrival. She's been through this before - the Malfoys love their shiny things, and they love any chance to draw attention to those shiny things even more.

"Calypso, a pleasure," he says, as soon as she crosses the threshold into the manor, extending his hand out to her. When she places her hand in his, he brings it up to his lips, pressing a kiss to her wrist. "Will your uncle be joining us tonight?"

He lets go of her hand and she lets it fall back to her side. "Not tonight, I'm afraid," she says, trying to sound sympathetic. "Still recovering from his last bout of dragon pox."

That's a bold-faced lie. Her 'uncle' isn't at home ill - Azibar Selwyn isn't even in the country. Hell, he probably isn't even anywhere in Europe anymore. The man hates his pureblood roots more than anyone Lily's ever known - _including_ Sirius Black - and had been desperate for some sort of escape from them that wouldn't result in anyone being out for his head. And so he'd approached Dumbledore of all people, begging the man to help him get out without a trace - and Dumbledore had agreed, but for a price.

That price had been Lily.

Before he disappeared, he'd toted Lily to a few key pureblood events, introducing her to everyone as his niece who'd moved to live with him after finishing her schooling in Norway. Once Lily - _Calypso_ \- had become a fixture in the pureblood social scene, thereby cementing her role as an informant for the Order, Azibar left the country, his absence completely unknown to anyone but Lily and Dumbledore himself.

He'd also left her with a rather impressive collection of vintage dress robes, citing that they'd stayed in the family for ages and he could care less about them. It's not like he'd had any daughters to pass them onto or anything of the sort.

She's made a number of alterations on the old-fashioned robes so that they better suit her own needs, but they were an incredibly useful starting point.

"That's unfortunate," Abraxas replies, although she doubts he actually misses Azibar's presence. The man has been gone for two years, after all, and no one has really thought twice of it. "Tell him I send my well wishes."

"Of course." She nods at Abraxas, before walking further into the manor, towards the sound of conversations and soft music.

She scans the room as soon as she steps into it, taking stock of who's here tonight. It's a lot of the usual suspects - the Averys, the Blacks, the Rosiers, the Yaxleys, and, of course, the Malfoys themselves. She finds the guests of honour easily - Narcissa is draped off Lucius' arm, clad in silver dress robes that nearly match her hair, while her fiancé is deep in conversation in Rabastan Lestrange.

Both of those two men are trouble, she knows that. She adds Rabastan to her mental list of people to linger around this evening - the sneer on his face as he talks to the Malfoy heir unsettles her, and she's long since learned that the conversations that appear the most unnerving to her are often the most informative.

"Champagne, Miss?" a house elf squeaks from below her, holding a tray of bubbling flutes above his head. She grabs a glass off the tray, and has to bite her tongue to hold back an automatic 'thank you.'

A Selwyn wouldn't talk to a house elf like that.

She takes a cautious sip of her drink before moving across the room. Most people here drink champagne (or wine, or whisky, or whatever really) like it's water, so she'd look quite out of place if she wasn't drinking anything at all, but letting herself get anything more than a little tipsy in this setting is asking for trouble. One little drunken slip could come at the cost of her life.

"Calypso, lovely to see you." Will Rosier appears at her side abruptly.

She resists the urge to groan. Rosier is, in all honesty, probably one of the tamest purebloods here - which would be a good thing normally, but is useless when the whole point of her presence here is overhearing dangerous plans.

But despite being utterly disinterested in some of the more violent tendencies of the other pureblood supremacists, he is fantastically interested in _her_.

"Will, a pleasure," she replies, faking a smile.

"I was wondering if you'd be making an appearance tonight."

She laughs, high and tinkling and nothing like her genuine laugh. "Since when have I ever missed an opportunity for a party?"

He smiles at her charitably. "Very true."

She's at these sorts of affairs nearly every time she's invited - the sole exception being the time that a match against Appleby had run late into the night and she'd been unable to get away in time. But otherwise, she's a relatively constant presence on the pureblood social scene.

"I was just on my way to congratulate the newly engaged couple," he continues. "Care to join me?"

He immediately offers her arm, not even considering the option that she'd say no.

Of course, she doesn't - she takes his arm and lets him lead the way to where Lucius and Narcissa are standing, still talking to Rabastan Lestrange and now joined by the other Lestrange brother, Rodolphus.

Her blood boils at the mere sight of Rodolphus - she _knows_ he was involved in the torture of a Muggle couple and their magical daughter just a few weeks ago, she's _heard_ him bragging about it at a party. But she has no evidence of it; there's nothing that she can give to Dumbledore that he can use, and so he continues to walk free.

It infuriates her, and makes her that much more set on making sure he _does_ rot in Azkaban at some point. It's what he deserves.

She hadn't intended to make her way into this conversation while hanging on Will's arm, but she's here now, so she'll take it.

"Lucius, Narcissa, congratulations," Will says as he enters the conversation, nodding at them formally.

"Congratulations," Lily adds, smiling at the couple. "Narcissa, you're going to look positively _stunning_ in white."

She nods, the faint smile on her face the perfect epitome of composure. "Thank you."

"We should be off to greet some new guests," Lucius says quickly, nearly tugging Narcissa along with him as he exits the newly-formed circle.

He'd made a move on her once, before he and Narcissa started courting, and still begrudges her slightly for rebuffing his advances.

She's happy to play the role of a pureblood supremacist to get information from their ranks, but dating one of them is a bridge too far.

She lets her arm fall from where it was still linked with Will's and turns her attention to the two Lestrange brothers.

"Rabastan, how good to see you," she says, leaning towards him just a little. "I heard you just got a promotion to Deputy Head in the Department of International Magical Cooperation, how brilliant. You must've been doing some really impressive work to make that happen."

Rabastan preens at her compliment, and Lily wants to laugh at how easy it is to get into his good graces.

Pureblood men are all narcissists; they love her because she indulges their self-obsessions. She plays them all like violins, and makes it look oh-so-easy.

And sure enough, by the end of the night, she's managed a dinner party invitation from the Lestranges and some important information about how Rodolphus plans to influence the upcoming Wizengamot trial of Amycus Carrow.

She'll put that new knowledge in a letter to Dumbledore, and he'll do whatever he needs to with it from there.

* * *

The next day brings ground training, and as Harrison is likely to do these days, he's put her in charge of running the thing so that he can focus on finalising their training schedule for the season.

As much as Lily loves air sessions, loves the feel of the wind in her hair as she shouts herself hoarse, she's got a strange soft spot for ground training sessions. Maybe because they give her flashbacks to her primary school years, where she'd done the beginner versions of this same type of training on her local football team.

She can still remember it vividly, those summer days with the sun beating down on them as they sprinted from one end of the field to the other. Lily would turn the same colour as her hair from the combination of exertion and sunburn, and she'd feel so wonderfully, gloriously _alive_. Giving up football was one of the things she'd been most upset about when going off to Hogwarts.

Of course, this is a significant step up from the grassy field at a community park. The conditioning room at the Puddlemere training facility is state-of-the-art, full of just about every type of weight and piece of training equipment a witch could dream up.

She's got the whole room set up for circuit training - the other assistants here are following her orders, and she's got every intention of working the team to the bone today. They've got tomorrow off to recover, after all, and this is what the pre-season is for - making them tougher than ever before.

The team slowly trickles in one by one, each person moving into a warmup of their own choice. James is the last to arrive, as usual, as he has been every single training session this week.

As soon as everyone's in the room, Lily tightens her ponytail and claps her hands together loudly, getting the whole team's attention in one fell swoop.

"Today's workout is circuit-style," she tells them. "The timer will run for a minute, then you'll have fifteen seconds to get to the next station before the buzzer will go off again. Once you've gone all the way around, you'll get a two-minute rest, before repeating everything three more times."

Her eyes fall on Gideon and Fabian, both of whom look vaguely horrified at this announcement. They've got a pretty good handle on how brutal Lily's training sessions can be when she wants them to be, and they've accurately predicted that she's got a rough one planned based on the structure alone.

She walks them through what to expect at each station - bench presses, squats, wall throws, footwork drills, weighted planks, and sprints, among other things. Every part about the workout is intentional, every part has a direct correlation to a skill the players need in the air. She takes pride in that, in the purposefulness of it all.

"Pick your starting station," she says at the end of her explanation, looking around the room. "First round begins in thirty seconds."

She waves her wand, and as expected, the magical timer starts its countdown. All the other assistants move to their assigned places as well, and at the first buzz, the whole thing kicks off like a well-oiled machine.

When she'd first started coaching, she'd held an incredibly foolish assumption that coaching was somehow a detached practice, that she'd just shout encouragement from the sidelines while the athletes did all the hard work.

It took approximately one day for her to realise that was not the case at _all_. It's not uncommon for her to find herself breathing just as hard as the athletes, what with bouncing between stations and adjusting weights between rounds _and_ trying to shout out guidance the entire time.

And on a day like today, where for some reason the heat is on full-blast throughout the training facility, it doesn't take long until sweat is beading at her brow.

" _Motherfucker_ ," Ozzie swears loudly, as he walks by Lily to get to the footwork drill station. "Is there a reason the compound feels like the inside of a Chinese Fireball today?"

"If there is, I wasn't informed of it," she tells him, as soon as she finishes fixing the cones on the ground. Her baby hairs have taken to clinging to the side of her face, so she attempts to slick them back behind her ears as she moves to monitor a different station.

When she looks over at the other side of the room, James is peeling his sweat-soaked shirt off of his body, crumpling it into a ball, and throwing it across the room to where his water bottle is sitting. She follows it as it arcs through the air, and naturally, it hits its mark effortlessly.

Her eyes drift back over to James, and… _fuck_.

She's seen professional Quidditch player's bodies before. She's not a complete stranger to the fact that they're all in incredible shape - they have to be, that's part of the job. They've pretty much all got solid builds and well-defined muscles. Hell, there are six other players in the room right now, and all the blokes are shirtless at this point. This isn't _new_.

And somehow, here she is anyways, completely in awe by the way his abs are bloody _glistening_ with sweat. The way his tanned skin reveals every little flex of the muscles underneath as he gets in position to start sprinting. He's _so_ different from the somewhat-lanky boy of their Hogwarts years, and for some reason, it sends her heart into a rapid-fire rhythm that can't entirely be blamed on the workout.

Which is absolutely absurd, really. Because _once again_ , this isn't anything she hasn't seen before.

The magical buzzer goes off, signaling the start of the next circuit, and Lily quickly redirects her focus to anything that isn't James before he - or anybody - can notice that she was staring at him.

It's a few rounds later, when Lily has taken to spotting the bench press, when James comes up to her station, wiping at the sweat on his brow before throwing the towel aside. He hasn't spoken to her much since the broom closet incident, only interacting with her when absolutely necessary for Quidditch purposes, and this seems to be a continuation of that trend. He doesn't try to make small talk while waiting for the buzzer, just gets into position on the bench, wrapping and unwrapping his fingers around the bar in a way that has Lily thinking of the _other_ things he could probably do with those fingers.

Once again, the shrill noise of the buzzer is the thing that brings her back into sanity.

She gets into position to spot him - not that he really needs it, she observes, as soon as he lifts the barbell off the rack and pushes through the first rep with ease. She makes a mental note to up his weight on bench presses during the next round.

But of course, the lack of any real need for a spot means that her full attention really isn't needed, which leaves her mind free to wander. And naturally, that wandering very quickly settles itself on the very person she's meant to be spotting. His form is damn near perfect, which really shouldn't be a thing that makes him more attractive in her eyes but somehow does. This is the same boy who once struggled with throwing her over his shoulder while running from Filch, but now?

Well clearly, he could throw her around like a fucking ragdoll.

She burns _that_ thought from her mind as soon as she possibly can, because honestly, she knows better than to let herself think things like that about him. She can admit he's fit - and unfairly so - but that's where the line stops. She shouldn't even _entertain_ any sort of fantasy involving him.

It's been years since she's thought about him like that, with the small exception of that one dream the night before he started at Puddlemere, but that wasn't a conscious fantasy so it shouldn't count. She has no intention of picking up the habit again. She's clean now - she's not risking that.

She starts taking spotting a lot more seriously at that, even though it's not necessary and James continues to knock out reps like it's nothing, but at least it saves her from any more inexplicable and questionably not-appropriate-for-work thoughts. But the moment the buzzer goes off and James reracks the barbell, she knows she came to her senses too late. He saw the way she was looking at him.

"Something catch your eye, Evans?" he says quietly, a knowing smirk plastered all over his bloody face that she wants to smack off immediately.

She curses his smugness and her lapse of sanity in the same breath.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replies simply, turning her attention to adjusting weight on the bar so that he can't see her cheeks turning red.

"Suuuure." The word is long and drawn out, and likely accompanied by a cocky raise of an eyebrow that Lily can imagine but can't see. But before she can look up at him and confirm, he's moving to the next station, and Mari comes over to hers.

She throws her full attention towards Mari, because like hell is she giving James that same sort of self-satisfaction twice. He's _incredibly_ fucking fit, but she's not going to fall at his fucking feet just because he's got a good body. She's _not_.

It's not intentional - or maybe yes, it is just a _little_ intentional - but she always ends up switching the station she's working on before James gets to it, so she doesn't really see much of him for a while after that.

The break between the third and final rounds is the closest she gets to him, as she digs her water bottle out of her bag and uses a towel to wipe the sweat off of her face and he does the same just a few meters away.

And she can't tell for sure, but she feels like he's watching her. For someone who called her out on her own staring, he sure is being a real bloody hypocrite if her instinct is correct.

There's only one way to know for sure.

She thanks her lucky stars that she decided to wear one of the sports bras that makes her tits look incredible today, before pulling her shirt over her head, just as James takes a sip of water. And judging from the way he suddenly develops a coughing fit as she tosses the damp fabric on the floor, he was _definitely_ watching.

Suddenly, the scoreboard is even.

It's _so_ incredibly stupid, but somehow, she gets a powerful rush of satisfaction from it anyways. The fact that he's not the only one who's gotten fitter since Hogwarts, and that she's not the only one who's noticed. This shouldn't be a competition, but it is.

And she needs to win.

She needs to make sure he's fully aware of _everything_ he missed out on. She needs that little, petty victory.

"Get in position for the final round!" she yells, turning her attention back to the thing she _should_ be paying the most attention to right now. "Give it everything you've got - if you're not dragging yourself out of here after this, you're doing it wrong!"

And when the buzzer goes off and everything begins all over again, she's fully back in the moment, all non-Quidditch thoughts of James completely cleared from her mind.

Until, at least, the end of the workout, when all the players file out to shower and head home, and Lily and the remaining assistants grab their wands to get everything in the facility put back in its rightful place before they leave.

Lucas is the one who mentions the name first. "Potter made quick work, didn't he?"

"You're telling me," Lexie replies with a scoff.

Lily looks at both of them quizzically. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, just that yesterday's edition of _Witch Weekly_ has some paparazzi shots of him from this weekend - he was out at one of the nightclubs in town apparently. And he had some girl on his arm the entire time, naturally," Lexie explains. "One of my friends was there, actually - said it looked like the two of them were about to shag right in the middle of the club at one point."

"I don't know what's more impressive - the fact that he's barely been here a full week and is already right back to pulling the same shit he did at Portree, or the fact that a reporter managed to _find_ him here so quickly," Lucas adds.

Lily laughs hollowly, turning her attention to getting the weights properly racked. "God, that doesn't surprise me in the slightest."

Even as she keeps a relatively calm exterior, a brand-new flash of anger is burning through her veins. James had gotten _so_ pissed off at her for daring to call him out on acting like some foolish party boy, as if she'd somehow gotten the story wrong, and then a few days later had gone out and done the exact same thing she'd called him out for.

He's such a fucking _liar_. He can say all the pretty - or not-so-pretty - words he wants to try and make her believe he's different, but it doesn't change the underlying truth. But she knew that, already, didn't she?

You can't ever trust a playboy.

* * *

_**Seventh Year, November 1977** _

_She's really got no clue what circumstances led her to this exact point, what justification exists for the fact that she's squished into a tiny hidden alcove with the Head Boy, hiding from the caretaker._

_All she knows is that she was walking down the hallway, largely minding her own business, when James appeared out of nowhere sounding an awful lot like he'd just been sprinting through the castle, deposited something in her hand, and breathlessly told her to throw it._

_And she really has no good explanation for why she actually followed through on those instructions, but she does. Throwing the small, round object had almost immediately results in an explosion of gold, brown, and green, and the distant sound of the Hogwarts caretaker cursing loudly._

" _Alright, Evans, run!"_

" _What?"_

_He sighs impatiently. "Please don't make me try to throw you over my shoulder again - we both know how well that went last time, and we need to get out of here before the smoke clears."_

_She doesn't need to be told again, and takes off in a run down the hall. James quickly catches up to her, thanks to his long legs, and they've rounded another corridor when James suddenly grabs her hand and pulls her with him as he disappears behind a tapestry._

_As it turns out, there's a pretty decent-sized alcove behind it. Well, it would be decent-sized for a single person, at least - it's a little cramped with the both of them in it._

" _That's a strange favourite colour, Evans," James says quietly, pulling a piece of parchment out of his back pocket._

" _What?"_

" _The smoke pellet you threw - it's a new Zonko's model that's designed to explode in the favourite colour of the person who set it off. Except yours set off three colours at once, which is weird."_

_She's never really given much thought to her favourite colour. If someone had asked her, she'd probably rattle off something random, like the baby blue of her childhood bedroom or the red of Gryffindor Tower's curtains. But certainly, she never would've said that whatever came out of that smoke pellet was her favourite colour. She's not sure where that came from at all._

_He mutters something and taps his wand against the parchment, and suddenly the page bursts to life. She's completely taken aback by it, watching in wonder as the parchment unfolds itself, showing… a map of some sort._

" _Is that a map of Hogwarts?" she asks, instantly curious._

" _I'll explain later," he whispers. "But Filch will be coming down this hall in approximately five seconds, so not now."_

_She wants to ask how he knows that with such certainty, but she doesn't say anything just yet. Especially because, as predicted, it's just a few seconds later when she hears the caretaker walking down the hall._

" _You can't hide from me forever," Filch snarls. "Foolish students out of bed, causing ruckus in the corridors, ought to chain you up for this."_

_Lily is, for some reason, almost immediately aware of how close she is to James in this particular alcove. She didn't notice it before when they were talking, but now, as they're holding their breath and hoping that the caretaker doesn't think to pull back an old tapestry, there's nothing to distract from the fact that she's pressed up against his side, his arm braced on the wall behind her, effectively tucking her up under his shoulder._

_The air is suddenly very, very warm._

_Can he hear how fast her heart is beating? They're in complete silence otherwise, and the pounding of it is all that she can hear in her own ears._

_James, for his part, is still studying the parchment in his hands, and Lily's eyes fall on a pair of footprints labelled 'Argus Filch' moving down the corridor. And sure enough, in the place he'd just passed over, are two other pairs bearing the names 'James Potter' and 'Lily Evans.'_

_After another minute of that, he finally breathes out a loud sigh of relief. "He's gone - we're in the clear."_

_Despite his words, neither of them make any attempt to move from their current position._

" _So, care to explain this thing?" Lily asks, gesturing to the map._

_James grins. "Oh yeah, this is a fun little piece of magic that the boys and I put together a few years back. Shows you the entire castle and everyone in it."_

_She looks back at it in wonderment. "You_ made _this?"_

" _Er, yeah," he replies, and - is that a hint of bashfulness in his tone? James Potter_ never _sounds bashful about anything - he's normally the first to brag about every little thing, a cheeky smirk on his face the whole time. "Technically, Remus did a lot of the more advanced charms work - my only real addition was the charm that makes it insult anyone who guesses the password wrong."_

_And then it hits her. "So_ this _is how you all are so good at never getting caught!" she says, looking up into his eyes. "You've got an enchanted map keeping guard for you."_

" _That, and this," he replies, holding up his other arm; for the first time since he appeared out of nowhere, she notices he's got some sort of cloak hanging off of it._

_She finds herself in awe of his possessions for the second time. "Is that a - ?"_

" _Invisibility Cloak, yeah," he finishes._

" _You're really giving up all your secrets tonight, aren't you?"_

" _Not all of them." There's a flash of mischief in his eyes, bright and wild, and she wants to ask what else he's got up his sleeve, but he changes the subject before she gets a chance to. "So, what had_ you _wandering the halls late at night?"_

_She shrugs. "Just wanted some fresh air and a break from work is all."_

" _Well, I suppose you got a little more of a break than you bargained for," he tells her, examining the space they're still crammed into. "And maybe a bit less fresh air."_

_Filch is long gone, so they've really got no reason to stay trapped in that small space anymore, and yet, neither of them has moved. And James is right - the air_ is _pretty musty behind the tapestry._

" _We're, er, free to go back now, right?" Lily asks, her eyes falling back to the parchment in his hands. "Since Filch is gone?"_

_James pulls his hand off the wall, running it through his hair. "Oh, yeah, I guess we are. Here - we can use the cloak to get back, since it's getting pretty close to curfew anyways."_

_He throws it over the both of them easily - the sensation is bizarre, because it feels like nothing more than having a blanket tossed over her head, but she knows objectively that she's entirely invisible to anyone else who may come across them now._

" _Why didn't we - "_

_He finishes her sentence for her. "Use this to hide from Filch instead of running? Simple - there's just not as much of a thrill in that."_

_She bites back a laugh at the way that he's just... so_ very _Gryffindor. Always needing the most exciting version of an escape plan is so perfectly on brand for him._

" _Not to mention that you can kind of see our feet when there's more than one person under here - which doesn't work too well with Filch's cat, given that he's on eye-level with them."_

_He places his hand lightly between her shoulder blades and pulls the tapestry out of the way, as if to guide her out into the hallway. The sudden presence of his hand makes her shiver, and he's not even touching her anywhere that should set off that sort of reaction._

_He notices the way she responds, his hand falling from her back as soon as they're both out from behind the tapestry. "Alright, Evans?"_

" _Yeah," she answers, covering up the real reason she shivered easily. "It's just a little drafty out here - I wasn't prepared for that."_

" _Well, let's get back to the common room where it's a little bit warmer then."_

_Being under the cloak necessitates that they walk closer together than they would otherwise - their shoulders brush constantly as they walk up the stairs, looking around for any evidence of teachers. Of course, being Head Boy and Girl, it wouldn't be too hard for them to have an excuse for being out past curfew, but Lily's not going to argue with their current position._

_Just outside the common room, he tugs the cloak off the both of them, and the Fat Lady jumps._

" _You always have a knack for appearing out of nowhere, boy," she admonishes, clutching her pearl necklace._

_James smiles at her good-naturedly. "It's a talent of mine, I suppose. Haberdashery."_

_The portrait swings open at his utterance of the password, and they step into the common room - which yes, is a good bit warmer than the corridors were._

_Once they're inside, she turns to him. "So, you never explained_ why _I was throwing enchanted smoke pellets in the hallway."_

" _You never asked," he replies. "Thanks for that - by the way, would've taken up far too much of the very limited time we had to get out of there. But that was just a diversion… the_ real _fun was on the other side of the castle."_

" _Let me guess - Sirius, Remus, and Peter."_

_The other three boys are lounging on the couches in front of the fire, having clearly returned from said expedition long before the two of them did._

" _You'll see tomorrow morning," James answers cryptically, a sparkle in his eyes._

_In the glowing golden light of the common room, his eyes are lit up behind his glasses, and there's colour in them that Lily's never really seen before. Gold, green, and brown, all perfectly intermixed into something deep and vibrant and lovely._

_Suddenly, she knows exactly where her favourite colour comes from._

" _I'm going to, ah, head up to bed," she says suddenly, feeling her cheeks warm at her abrupt revelation. "This was fun."_

_He tsks at her, the smirk on his face widening. "Our model Head Girl here, calling rulebreaking and sneaking around past curfew 'fun.' "_

" _The most fun I've ever had," she replies. "Goodnight, James."_

" _Night, Lily."_

_She walks up to her dormitory, mind reeling with the fact that she'd probably live this whole night over and over again if she could, and trying to figure out what the hell that says about her._


End file.
